a winter scarf

striped: oxblood, charcoal, dim ochre, charcoal, oxblood. the wool is lambswool, never washed in a machine, and still smells of the cedar shelf and of an afternoon spent indoors. one tassel is shorter than the others, because a child once chewed it.

worn last on a station platform, in a wind that came from no particular direction. the wearer was waiting for a train that arrived, and she went elsewhere, and the scarf remained on the bench, and then remained on the lost-property hook, and then was claimed by no one, and then by someone, and then by us.

it sits folded on the second shelf of the linen cupboard, under white sheets nobody uses, beside the thimble drawer.

field-note: a faint smell of pipe-smoke that does not belong to anyone in this house.