Her cashmere sweater, navy blue,
was passed to me when Mother died.
Though soft and warm, with little wear,
it has a hole that needs repair.
Mending it from the other side,
I spot another, then a few.
I hold the sweater to the light.
Small holes shine out like stars at night.

From her I learned this homely art,
as well as not to toss or waste
what might be saved. I thread and sew
and knot and thread again. Although
I salvage what the moths defaced,
I cannot patch my threadbare heart,
for I can never, never, never
suture what is gone forever.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “I got the idea for this poem and began writing it in my head as I was mending the sweater, and since, as I mention, the mending took quite a while, I had several lines completed before I was done with the sewing. The rhyme scheme, ABCCBADD, rather mimics the activity of closing up a hole and tying off the thread with the final couplet, though that was not something I was conscious of as I was writing it. My unconscious does its own thing while my conscious mind struggles with finding what to say. However, I was quite conscious of echoing Lear’s lament for Cordelia in the repeated “never, never, never” of the next-to-last line. That repetition and negation have always struck me as being the epitome of grief.”

‘Mending’ was first published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.

Susan McLean has three books of poetry: The Best Disguise, The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and her latest, Daylight Losing Time (Able Muse, 2026). She had also published a book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Crab Orchard Review, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

“darning a sweater” by henna lion is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.