It’s the season of giving gifts
I wish I could give you the gift of making memories together
Isn’t time spent together the most precious gift we can give?
Instead, I am hand stitching the beach into this sweater. 
I will gift this memory and keep it as my own

Does sisterhood mean sitting at the beach side by side,
talking, 
weaving memories into garments?

Thinking of her, my mother’s sister as if she were mine to call every day. 
A bond from the day there were the two of them
In this sweater she is going to make memories without me.
The price I am paying for having left. 

The thread continues to a friend, a soul sister. 
For her I am going to hand stitch
the morning rays of a winter sun into the garment.

The thread I brought 
not long enough to finish the sweater entirely. 
Not even enough for one elbow patch. 
As if the thread knew that I would need time to write. 

My children are playing in the sand.
I am stitching that memory into the sweater, too. 
Will it evoke a memory of two sisters playing in the snow?
At this time of year? 
What was time spent for them at the hearth in winter
is a sunset at the beach for me.