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Furoshiki
Ruth Holzer

(Japanese Wrapping Cloth)

If you need to carry a watermelon
through a summer afternoon,
or a book, or a bottle
of chilled wine
or a long, slender object,
a knife, perhaps,
to slice the watermelon
or to open the uncut pages of the book,

then this hand-dyed
silk cloth, indigo patterned
with red and gold koi,
when intricately folded,
will become a shape
fit for every purpose,
holding the contents
intact for your journey.

—
Ruth Holzer is the author of eight chapbooks, most recently Living in Laconia (Gyroscope Press) and Among the Missing (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, Faultline, Slant, Poet Lore, Connecticut River Review, and Plainsongs, among other journals and anthologies. She has received several Pushcart Prize nominations.

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