For my Mother

I wrote this about my mother a few years ago. Also unrevised. She asked me to type it up for her, but I think I forgot to do it until now.

My parents' room
Had an alcove
Where my mother kept
Her sewing machine

My mother does not love to sew
But she likes things the way she likes them
And so she sews
When she wants to make something
That she wants
But doesn't want
The way she found it

The sound of my childhood
Is peppered with the sporadic whirring
Of the sewing machine
Like spatters of machine-gun fire
Ratta-tat-tat!
A Halloween costume
Ratta-tat-tat!
A bedspread
Ratta-tat-tat!
Curtains for the living room

Christmas Eve
Feverish reports from the alcove
Tommy guns
Epic battle
World War II

On Christmas morning
I padded down the stairs
Under the tree
The new doll
And the clothes
She had sewed
At night