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Double Strand
Marjorie Power

I’ll pass this necklace
on to my daughter
as my mother did to me

my mother who sat out her ninetieth year
watching a much too loud TV

she who never approved
of television
sat watching in her bathrobe
and pearls

whose glow
I long to appear in
on occasion — except there are none

and even if one comes along
occasion barely comes through

no one’s caught dead
in pearls anymore
graduated pearls
all the lovelier
for their caress
of a woman’s last hours

I’ll pass them on to my daughter
maybe she’ll find an event

except I have no daughter
and my grand’s a serious gymnast

—
Marjorie Power was a stay-at-home mom with no MFA who wrote poetry during school hours. She has continued to write long since. Having spent most of her adult life in various western states, she lives with her husband near their son’s family in Rochester, New York. Her most recent full-length poetry collection is Sufficient Emptiness (Deerbrook Editions, 2021). Epoch, Atlanta Review, and Solstice Literary Review have taken her work recently.

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Have you read these poems:
Because by Craig Cotter
Summer, 1961 by Joseph Hutchison

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