You Can’t Say No

You can’t say No
to the tangled threads
among the patient silks and cottons
still in their coils with labels of companies extinct
leaf-brown newspaper patterns
with pencil scratchings that once
meant everything to a vest a panto horse
or a dress for that dance
by now you have your own oddments
leftovers in a cardboard box
and buttons that might be useful
and your mother’s and her mother’s
and the woman at church
whose mother you never knew
except by her handiwork
pressing it into your hands
‘Someone said you would know
what to do with this.’

You can’t say No

Sharon Gunason lives in Caithness. Which, like Indiana, where she grew up, is a place people often drive through on their way to someplace else. The raw beauty/wide open skies hold those lucky enough to be able to see it even on the days when the winds howl and the sea turns to foam. She moved to Caithness in 2005. Her writing reflects her fondness for her new home. Published work includes Returning: The Journey of Alexander Sinclair, poetry in New Writing Scotland, Northwords Now and in anthologies by Caithness Writers.http://tinyurl.com/sharonspage.