Billy Collins "The Lanyard"

I still remember exactly where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing when I read the final stanza.


that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.