Benjamin Grossberg

My Mother Approves

It was not evening-out jewelry,
not twice-a-year jewelry.
She slept in it. She always said
when she died I would have it
but almost certainly never
pictured me wearing it:
how it would lie an inch
below my beard, in the hollow
between my clavicles,
how the serpentine chain
would catch stray hairs
on my shoulders and neck
and the emerald bright
with its corona of diamond chips
would fill the open collar
of a flannel shirt, over jeans,
brown belt, work boots, and be,
to the right kind of man, a signal—
a traffic light glowing green
at the most vulnerable spot
on my throat. Now in death,
she understands the necklace
was always about drawing the eye
to the flesh: a way to scoop
light from the air, to make
a man want to catch that light
like a snowflake on his tongue.
Yes. That’s the word
she’s saying to the body
most like her own once was,
briefly incarnating herself
in front of me to straighten
the chain. My mother like
any mother willing her child
to be beautiful: Yes, it fits
like that, close to your throat.

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Benjamin S. Grossberg’s collections of poetry include My Husband Would (University of Tampa Press, 2020), winner of the Connecticut Book Award, and Sweet Core Orchard (University of Tampa Press, 2009), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His novel, The Spring before Obergefell (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), was selected by Percival Everett for the AWP’s James Alan McPherson Prize and also received a Lambda Literary Award. Ben is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Hartford.