Inherited warmth

Cyclical womanhood

I write poetry so sparingly, I’m not even sure we can call it that. But I wrote this after dropping off a cashmere shawl at my mom’s house for her to wear to a wedding tonight. I fed her cats, let the dog out, and stood by the window watching yellow leaves glimmer in the rain.

I’d left my phone at home, so I scribbled the first lines on the back of her grocery list. Everything felt like it was both arriving and leaving at once. A proper autumn introduction.

To me, this wasn’t about heat in the literal sense. It was about an invisible warmth, passed along, folded by hand, floating in the cinnamon scented air of her home. The kind you grow up inside without realizing it until you’re twenty five and standing alone in your childhood house on a rainy October evening.

I’ve always felt that womanhood is cyclical. We learn to nurture by watching it happen. We build warmth out of what we have. We carry light through small things: folding a blanket, lighting a fire, waiting for the rain to pass. I think in those last lines, I mean to describe how absence can hold beauty. That warmth is something you leave behind, cycling in appearance over time, not just something you feel in the moment.