Prose poem for Father’s Day

Textiles. Textures. Materials. Cloth.
by Mary Harwell Sayler

Wearing this shirt worn by a stranger no longer wears down the edges of my fingernails. Eventually, all polish chips away. Once in a while of silk slippers and white chiffon, I had grown too accustomed. Denim did not come as effortlessly as imagining denim and then only on Saturdays with my father’s sturdy long-sleeved shirt loosely matching the dependable fabric of his arms. Some say his spirit gave me God, while connecting with people tangled in maternity, not material – text, not texture, but sometimes the way the weave is worn.

© 2014, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved. This prose poem was originally published in the poetry book, Outside Eden. For more about prose poems, see “Do real poets read and write prose poems?”

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