This week the closet is the new concern,
her latest obsession is coat hangers.
They are perfect, come five to a pack, shrink
wrapped, sold online at Bed Bath and Beyond.
Last week she was strict about her goldfish:
gravel, gills, tank, chosen because they match.
Joy and effort have entered a death match.
Of course we know it’s a growing concern.
We want her to blend in the school of fish,
want her in line like all those nice hangers.
So when it is not so easy, beyond
a sticker chart, we vent before our shrink.
At four, in preschool, she would never shrink
from her desire to paint all blue, match
her tights to her tunic. It went beyond
a dress code. I love her earnest concern.
All the other kids seemed like hangers-on,
mamma’s manatees, near our rainbow fish.
In a notebook, then on a clipboard, fish
details were recorded. We did not shrink
from the tasks, even their deaths. Coat hangers,
you would think they’d have less drama. They match
the same, maybe even more. Her concern
for this small matter inflates far beyond
what we can handle each morning, beyond
our reason. At breakfast, I’m standoffish.
Just pick out an outfit. Why this concern?
This is the wrong thing to say to preshrink
her wrinkled worries. It just strikes the match.
She cries to her backpack, papers hanging,
kite strings. The kitchen, an empty hangar
I’ve left her alone in. The school beyond
some door she can’t unlock. There is no match
no matter how much I pretend to fish
in my purse for that key. I’m the shrinking
mother. But here is my truest concern:
I’ve met my match. Grafting blooms grows selfish.
Shrug off the coat I hang on you. Don’t shrink
to fit. Beyond my cuffs is your concern.
Colleen Michaels is the author of Prize Wheel (Small Bites Press, 2023), and coauthor, along with Kevin Carey, of the chapbook, Olympus Heights (Lily Poetry Review, 2023). She is a winner of the 2024 Ginsberg Poetry Prize. Her poems have been commissioned as installations for The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, The Peabody Essex Museum, and The Trustees of Reservations. She directs the Writing Studio at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she began the Improbable Places Poetry Tour, bringing poetry to unlikely places like tattoo parlors, laundromats, airports, and swimming pools. Yes, in the pool.
