A GOOD BUY

Mama's shawl adorns my piano,
a black Steinway Baby Grand
    enveloped in red challis, black fringes.

Mama bought the shawl at S Klein,

On the Square, 14th Street,
    when I was eight.

"A good buy," she said.
She bought me a blue skirt and white middy,
    but it was the shawl that made her smile.

She wore it with her black wool suit, "to give it color."
As it lay over her sturdy shoulders, she stood tall;
    she hummed "Cielito Lindo" tho she spoke no Spanish.

After Daddy died she packed the shawl in a box
taking it out and fondling it
    on the anniversary of his death.

She would place it around her broad shoulders,
look at herself in the mirror,
    and put it away.

On a Thanksgiving night a few years ago,
she was wearing the shawl,
    her body frail, shoulders shrunken,

the shawl circled twice around her figure.
She said she wanted to wear it
    to keep her warm.

The shawl draped Mama's shoulders in the
Nursing Home when she sat in her chair,
    and it lay across her bed, a soft blanket as she slept.

Mozart's "A Little Night Music,"
Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue,"
    And "Cielito Lindo."

Mama's shawl adorns my piano,
a black Steinway Baby Grand
    enveloped in red challis, black fringes.

GILDA KREUTER

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