Singer Featherweight, 2020

You carried it from your mother’s house

on the airplane, like a child

you swore to hold

on your lap,

lugging it through gate after gate.

*

The pile of masks grows

with every breath,

you, learning on each seam,

the tricks of your new housemate,

which hums as it did in ‘49,

stitch after stitch.

*

I look at them now,

this pile that was once

our napkins. a tablecloth.

a few shirts. a pillowcase.

*

When they talk of the sacrifices

our generation made,

find kinship, or comparison

with our grandmothers -

may we find solace in this,

the machine she used once

to make a dress

you might have shredded

for masks.