Taking Pause

Betsy Joseph

November 26, 2023

It is true we learn by doing

yet we also learn by watching:

such as the time my mother paused 

on a shopping village sidewalk

and paid a quarter for a sewing needle packet.

The seller stood stooped in the shadows—

scraggly gray hair uncombed,

brown shoes scuffed and overly large,

her hands holding a wicker basket

containing these small parcels.

Other ladies were skirting around the woman,

careful not to make contact of any kind.

My mother initially started to move past,

one hand pulling my arm, then paused—

looking first at the outstretched wares

then down at me.

I sensed the shift in purpose and waited.

Life bustled all around us

as my mother made the transaction,

accepting the dingy packet with a smile,

and we continued down the sidewalk.

Some four decades later I retrieved that small packet

from the depths of my mom’s sewing kit and paused

before slipping it into my pocket,

honoring an old transaction a second time.

Betsy Joseph lives in Dallas and has poems that have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry books published by Lamar University Literary Press: Only So Many Autumns (2019) and most recently, Relatively Speaking (2022), a collaborative collection with her brother, poet Chip Dameron.