'New cloth' / 'Shellfish Lovers'

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

New cloth

Your pattern pinned itself to the fray of me

the first day. Not yet stitched, aligning

fragile tissue, judging bias - the wounded

cut carefully

always holding their breath.

When they remade you, I slept

on a hospital couch with your dress, bundled

like a woolen heart, to my nose. Five hours

inhaling-exhaling bargains

a short time to outfit a whole woman

into her own dear self.

We tied knots with every colour we could find.

Understand, love always gets down to the wisp

beyond fabric, to stroke

the finest thread of a person - our making looms

us legacies of holes -

you fear cutting yourself short, me

born running with scissors, and all of us

rippling fast towards the great unravelling

Yet the great thumping treadle of a heart can still say

now you’re mending - billow with the wind.

~ Ankh Spice