Jumbled Sewing Basket, Green And White Wicker Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

jumbled sewing basket, green and white wicker:
of reading! coloured threads and gilded, too;
strange bits of tulle, and on the underside,

sunset lamé, and pinking shears, if you want
to get fancy. silks from the first fairytales,
a spool of dreaming...

summer brocades and thimbles from the fairy haunts,
Grandmother said. cathedral floss and something
lost and patches from your mother's dresses,

loveliest of all: sprigged lavender, tangerine or rosy.
chocolate bars and ruby delicious apples.
(they're from the cupboard, stenciled in

Pennsylvania Dutch, I wished, quickly, in pink and green
with lemon rick-rack) .

is that too much description said the teacher, gently-
dressed in her leading questions, back-to-back.
you didn't know my Grandmother, did you?
I said, mysteriously, hummingbird-sipping
my fizzing coke.