The
Seamstress
My mother holds
the tangled threads of her five children
gathered in her
frail hands,
now adults, all
of us,
yet her babies
still,
siblings once
woven so tightly.
She clutches
the flimsy threads delicately,
not wanting
them to break,
but she knows
when her time is done the stitches,
almost brittle
now with age,
will pucker and
snap,
unravelling
like a knitted sweater frayed at the seams
that slowly
unweaves and shrinks in the wash.
The five of us,
once finely
patterned within the squares of a cozy quilted comforter,
are now knotted
differently,
we are
mismatched buttons,
different paths
we stitched,
different
worlds we embroidered,
different
blueprints we followed.
We may have
been pierced with needles or cut with scissors
and discarded like
scraps and rags,
but still
forever entwined,
criss-crossing
like lattice or unfolding like yards of white lace
or glistening
like beaded brocade,
other times
jumping through our fitted hoops casting each other off.
Sometimes we’re
bold like strands of gold and other times
we hide in the
folds as we try to patch our souls.
We are twisted
and at odds the five of us—
two against
three, three against two—
faded appliqués
of various shades and sizes
torn from a
worn and loving quilted spread,
smothered with
pin pricks of jealousy,
looping alone
and spinning yarns and piping warped dreams
that don’t
gauze the rip nor mend the tear.
We’ve forgotten
the wicker basket from where we came—
a hamper once
filled with love and accessories with which to mend—
the one the
seamstress hovers over,
ever watchful
and caring.
But in times of
crises—
when pockets
are picked and seams are shattered—
we gather and
braid together,
our dyes run
forth again while we weave our tapestry of colors
into a padded patchwork that frames our mother in love.
into a padded patchwork that frames our mother in love.