Grief
“Made with love by Paula”
by Rebecca Long
Clothing moths feast
On a cream cardigan
With hand-embroidered pink flowers
And a neck seam label that reads
“Made with love by Paula”
In a musty hall closet
That hasn’t been opened in two weeks
In a 1930s Spanish-style home
In West Hollywood.
The moths don’t know
That the sweater
Will be donated soon—
Newly tear-stained—
To the Downtown Women’s Center
Where it will be washed
For the first time
In twelve years.
Most of the moths on the cardigan
Will die, but some will escape
To the shadowy corners of the closet,
Avoiding being stuffed
Into a garbage bag,
Surviving
On dust and loose fibers, and,
In a few months, new clothes
Will hang where the sweater
Made with love by Paula,
Once hung.
The new garments, sweaters
Made with polyester and nylon—
Not wool like the old cardigan—
Will not taste as good,
Or smell the same,
But in time, the moths
Will become familiar
With the fabric landscape
Of their new world
And, once more, feel
At home.
Rebecca Long is a writer and editor based in Boston. Her journalism has appeared in Teen Vogue, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, and others. She writes the "Look Again" column for Observer and is an independently approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes. Her fiction/poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Flash Frog, HAD, Maudlin House, Reckon Review, and others. Visit her website, rebeccaclong.com.
