Josh Mahler: “A Small Thing”
A SMALL THING
after Ted Kooser
Across the street from my window,
I watch a woman set down
a child. She pulls from her coat pocket
a blue woolen hat. My mother used to
crochet ones that look the same,
though, she preferred patterns
from memory, the signature of her hands.
The woman gives over to the method,
and how she stares down in awe, I presume,
at the tiny reflection, a parallel life
not yet aware of the soul, accepting
a small thing done in silence,
asking nothing in return—
I hold my breath as she moves thru the room.
Josh Mahler has had poems published in Tar River Poetry, South Dakota Review, The Louisville Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Miracle Monocle, Puerto del Sol, The Southern Poetry Anthology (from Texas Review Press), and elsewhere.