Into the Needle
If the virus doesn't ever go away
or worse, worsens, what will I do?
I don't let my mind go there. I stay close
to the day, the hour, the minute,
the present, I sew a mask, stitch
by stitch, the prick of the needle,
a small dash of thread, one moment
into another, a thought leading
to the next--
Sometimes I let myself imagine a
new year, a new home, a new
line of work. Surroundings change
and I'm the same, my body superimposed
on a background like Colorforms,
a toy from childhood. The real magic:
the way two surfaces stick together
without glue, an object peeled and fixed
onto a picture, belonging, temporarily.
I know life's not this smooth,
like glass, like the surface of a still pond.
It's rough and ragged, jagged
as a mountain no one has ever
seen before. I must train to
scale this passage, but perhaps I am
building new muscles, however
slight: a shift of the eye, a snip of thread
cut square, a breath in, and out, of
care.
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