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Column 572

My Mother Worries About My Hat

Intro by Ted Kooser
03.06.2016

In my lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence, moth­er­ing and wor­ry­ing go hand in hand. Here’s a moth­er’s wor­ry poem by Richard Jar­rette, from his fine book, A Hun­dred Mil­lion Years of Nec­tar Dances. He lives in California.

My Mother Worries About My Hat

Every spring my mother says I should buy a straw
hat so I won't overheat in summer.

I always agree but the valley's soon cold, and besides
my old Borsalino is nearly rain-proof.

She's at it again, it's August, the grapes are sugaring.
I say, Okay, and pluck a little spider from her hair—

hair so fine it can't hold even one of her grandmother's
tortoise shell combs.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Poem copyright ©2015 by Richard Jarrette, “My Mother Worries About My Hat,” from A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances, (Green Writers Press, 2015). 
Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.