Halloween Hearth Gift Set

I made you two weights so the night cannot lift.
A lid for the thinking. A chain for the gift
of staying in-body when hours run thin.
This is the grounding. This is where we begin.

The hat is the first. It belongs to the weather.
It says to the cold she is here, held together.
Midnight-meet-moss, and a brim that can stay —
not costume. A lid for a long-working day.

The chain is the second. Metal, old glass.
It sits on the sternum and will not let pass
the drift after dishes, the float after care.
Same dark as the brim. It is ballast. It’s there.

Wear them when you’ve earned the right to be still.
The night wants you untethered. It tests what you will.
You put on the dark and you stay in your skin.
The work has a body. You live from within.

Then comes the holding — the gift of the weight
learned by the mothers who stood at the gate.
Two aprons to wrap, for the tall and the small.
A woman’s own weight is a shelter for all

the stones that this life has the nerve to let fly.
You tie on the cloth, you don’t have to ask why.
The hat and the chain are the earning you keep.
The aprons are how that earning runs deep.

Cards in the pocket. A sticker or two.
A laugh for the kettle when grounding is through.
They ride with the cloth. They don’t carry the night.
They’re only the grin when the holding is right.

Take hat. Take the chain. Then take up the hold.
The workbench is finished. The office is old.
Go tend to the threshold. Come back if you must.
The weights will wait for you. So will the dust.