She Will Not Budge
A Golden Shovel Poem
by Gail Denham

“Bone-Pale, the recent snow fastens like fur to the river.”
from Early December in Croton-on-Hudson, by Louise Glück

His mother looks bone-pale,
in the weak light from the
lamp her impatient son clicked on in recent
moments, hoping dark skies and the arrival of snow
might now convince his mother to move. She only fastens
her sweater tighter, almost like
her cat’s mangy fur;
the fur that sheds everywhere, and now clings to
the son’s new sweater. Irritated, the
son murmurs: “I’d like to toss that mongrel in the river.”



 

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