The Millennium Issue:
Past
Teresa White
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The Handkerchief Collection
I cut my finger peeling pears.
Thirty years later I don't think of pears
or the way I offered my hand to the sky.
I think of the many-storied house
in Kansas: the heat, the centipedes,
the Strauss waltzes,
Mother holed up in her room
with her handkerchief collection.
When she was taken to the hospital,
I knew what she missed most
was stacked in those white boxes.
The day a drop of my blood
spotted her favorite hankie,
she shrieked "Ophelia!"
called me Ophelia!
as I unwrapped a Band-Aid with a tremble,
my future tattooed with a crescent scar.
~Teresa White
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and published extensively in print and on the Internet, Teresa's second book of poetry is slated for completion this summer. Visit her home page or
email her.
© 2000 by Teresa White. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 23, 2002.