The sales girl tells me
she is the daughter of a dairy farmer
who died when she was four,
her mother never hugged her--
never.
"What's the matter with you?" she said
"Your mother hug you too much,
or not enough?"
How I miss my mother,
the way she smiled
when we greeted in the morning
with a song or like old friends
hugging tightly.
The memory of her strong
and careful little fingers on the lids
of my child eyes
as she gentled me to sleep.
"Better Sleep Is On The Way"
is the ordinary tagline of the mattress store
in tax-free Keene, New Hampshire.
Bea hands me a medium pillow,
and a paper doiley to keep
my braids from the fibers of the fabric
between petite me and each trial of comfort.
Too firm, too fancy, too expensive,
too bouncy, too plastic, too cold,
until we narrow it to two.
The mattress back home,
nearly twenty years my companion,
is older than any marriage or time
with a trusted lover.
The dip under my left hip
and the collapsing edges
have urged me to endure the banter
of the Providence accent
that has likely never
stepped foot on any farm.
"I'll take this one." I whisper in apology.
She has mercy on me.
Free delivery
and they will take away the body
filled with mites and skin
and all the stains of too many nights.
Guaranteed for ten years.
She hugs me,
calls me Honey,
offers me a butterscotch candy
on my way out.
They will deliver
next Sunday.
I will be ready
for the call.
