Every Tuesday, around three o’clock, a lady named Doris arrives at the boutique and buys a very small hat. They are made for mice, but she does not own a mouse. I asked her once what they were for. She said, “They are for the ones I haven’t met.” I took this to be a poem, and wrote it on the wall.
Doris has bought thirty seven hats since April. I knit them from whatever remains at the end of the week: a scrap of rust, a pinch of green, a loop of something I cannot identify. She always pays in exact change. Yesterday she asked if she could see the hats from before. I said they had all been returned. She nodded, and bought another.
Leave a Reply