Sewing

by Bruce Meyer


Each darting plunge
like fortune’s wheel –
the bobbin spinning
to her toe’s touch,

her tongue locked
between front teeth –
such concentration
held our lives in check;

or when she’d baste
my sister’s puff sleeve
or hung nautical drapes
to keep nightmares out,

she’d snip a length
as if to cut a cord,
then pull a seam
to test its strength

on a wear-worn dart.
Piece by patient piece,
she fashioned our lives,
a Singer, her delicate art,

racing to beat the light,
dancing on heads of pins,
repeating patterns of memory,
until line held tight.

 

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Bruce Meyer is author of more than 60 books of poetry, short fiction, non-fiction, and literary journalism. He won the Gwendolyn MacEwen Prizes in 2015 and 2016. His most recent books of poetry are the award-winning The Seasons, The Arrow of Time, and 1967: Centennial Year.

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