The Raincoat
by Ada Limón
When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
From The Carrying. Copyright © 2018 by Ada Limón.
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company LLC
on behalf of Milkweed Editions, milkweed.org
Read this and other poems by Ada Limón in The Carrying, available for purchase online.
Ifind this poem by Ada Limón a deeply moving reminder of all the times in my life when I wasn’t aware of what someone was giving up to take care of me, to offer something I needed. The many layers of “The Raincoat” dovetail together when the speaker, driving herself back from yet another spine appointment, sees a mother taking off her own raincoat and offering it to her daughter. It’s then that she realizes she never once asked what her mother was sacrificing to drive her back and forth to those physical therapy appointments. She never considered how her mother encouraged her to sing to distract her from the boredom of the trip and perhaps the soreness of the physical therapy, thinking instead that her mother simply enjoyed the sound of her voice. The final lines of the poem arrive like a revelation, when it finally dawns on the speaker that she’s been tended to all these years by her mother’s kind attention, having lived “under her raincoat” while “thinking it was somehow a marvel/that I never got wet.” For those of us lucky enough to have experienced this kind of protection (or to have offered such care to someone we love), we no doubt understand why the Latin root of the word, “sacrifice,” means “to make holy.” As Limón illustrates so well here, by giving to others, when it feels right to do so, even in the most ordinary of ways, we make our moments with them all the more sacred.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: What scene from the past is sparked by the memory the speaker describes in this poem? It might be a similar revelation of sacrifice by a loved one (parental or otherwise), or you might choose instead to write about someone who failed to make the desired sacrifices for you in childhood or later in life. Either way, try to describe faithfully what comes to you.
ABOUT THE POET: Ada Limón
Ada Limón is the author of five poetry collections, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her fourth book Bright Dead Things was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry, she serves as host for the podcast, The Slowdown, and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
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