Photo courtesy Marilia Castelli via Unsplash

She dashes down the hallway

with rollers like buoys in her hair,

a sewing machine bobbing unevenly under her arm.

She has the idea that she’ll convert a couple of shower curtains—

into an expanse of the sea.

The Korean school at church—allocated for the once-a-week lesson—was mired in monochromatic brown carpet and brown curtains. The room looks like soy sauce! Children can’t learn in soy sauce!

Their savior—a seashell shower curtain—will bring cheer and shells to Korean school.

She stoops over the machine mumbling, Why bobbin? Broken bobbin? 

Her foot pedaling a stop-go, stop-go, do-si-do-your-partner!

Running the curtain through the headstrong bobbin, it refuses conversion therapy.

But the kids need seashells! They will learn how to write “ah” and “oh” and “eh” with the whiff of the sea.

The final pass

stitched on tenuous threads, she sprints down the hallway. 

Sanguine seashells billowing behind her—ripping rollers as she goes,

out the door but right back in. I forgot my new church shoes under the couch.

New shoes to pair with church slacks and a church cardigan.

Buoys strewn on the floor, 

pretending to bob on the sea.

*   *   *

“Smily” is a nickname my mother gave herself. These are a collection of stories and poems written for her.