The Jigsaw Puzzle

By Yolanda Klingler

Honorable Mention

With shaking hand she scanned

many-hued blues to find

the piece with leaf to fit

into its proper place;

repeat—

The search ends empty, so

the grandma-fingers dig

into the puzzle box

extracting more new blue

again.

“No! None of these will do!

This one shows bark and dark,

and here, straight edge suggests

a ridged borderline, but false.

The border’s done.

Perhaps I was unwise

to try with failing eyes

to tackle taxing task of

fifteen hundred piece.”

(Sigh)

With magnifying glass

the hunt and turn resumes

over and over—

until in evening hour (when

daylight’s long since dimmed)

she finds the piece with leaf

and neatly locks in place,

and smiles—

“That’s all I’ll do today.”

Then donning flannel print

in place of jersey knit

she slumbers off to sleep,

deep. …

Or so the story goes

the last day of her life,

the twenty-first of May in 1928.

Now as I kneel today

at temple altar,

pray

this precious grandma mine

(the Master’s jigsaw piece)

be locked into her place.