Fall Sweater

Fall Sweater

Dry clean or hand wash

use warm water

do not rub wring spin or bleach

dry flat

warm iron

Particular to the garment and fiber:

cotton or wool or silk, on a tag

at the back of the neck--for the sweater

from Carraig Donn--and maybe

because it took to the earth

in a different way, was plucked

and chewed and ruminated, was first

sod, yes, like cotton, was spit, yes, like

silk, but when the black belly, when

the catacombs of viscera, when

the squeeze and the sheer weight

of its final removal, a whole

coat or two maybe in this case, a

cream colored sweater so much at home

the way it’s worn and so thoroughly

warm, it belongs

on my skin the way it belonged

on the sheep’s skin.   Is it blasphemous

to want it in cotton?  Because

honestly the itch is more than I can take.

I’ve gotten used to the weight but I know

I know I’ll never wear it bare.  But I want to!

And caring to starts with taking it

down at the start of the fall--

lacking all the ceremony of how it should be

stored to prevent the lips of moths…but God!

it’s on my mind now and needs cleaning

like the days remaining before you died

how you could never get, to your liking,

clean enough or warm enough, how cotton

was not enough and for sure not silk,

and I had this sweater for you, even though

it’s heavy and itchy, and I pulled it

up to your chin like I were tucking you in

for the night and look down at you in a moon

or the glow from the open door

and see it fuse into you it’s animal self

and you’d cough a little and spit and that’s

the small stain on the back of the collar,

just above the cleaning instructions

and for all the while you wore it I left it

there and now, now that you’ve died

and are buried my only like to you is this bile

stain and how absolutely at home it is there

how it took to the wool the way grain

takes to oak.  What you’ve pulled up out of you.

What grew from you.  What was cut

and spun.  What was knit then spit

to keep me warm.