This is from a core sample from the floor of the Sea of Mending,
a cylinder packed with shells that over many years
sank through fathoms of shirts— pearl buttons, blue buttons—
and settled together beneath waves of perseverance,
an ocean upon which generations of women set forth,
under the sails of gingham curtains, and, seated side by side
on decks sometimes salted by tears, made small but important repairs.
Ted Kooser is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet who served as the United States poet laureate from 2004 to 2006. This poem is taken from Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004) and used with permission.
