Slipped Stitches

Day 6 of the PAD challenge. Prompt: "Looking for (blank)"


slipped stitch that strains
the eye, perfection except for
the lapse in attention caused
by....what? a knock on the
door and your knitting falls
from your lap? nerves disordered
so,
plucked as a harp, discordant, jagged notes at
four ay em, the china pot cracked
into a map of crazing that leads,
well, nowhere

looking for the thread to mend the
slipped stitch, her tongue, thick
with worries, as silent as those
on the butcher's block, next
to the crubeens

.........

searching out the light behind
the leaded glass, the diamonds
of glass winking back

the conversation rises, falls in
erratic amplification, so
many stitches tied and knotted
off, some talk of Christmas letters

(and the baskets yet to
be auctioned)

no knife to be found for the bread, and so
their crosses remain uncut, wheat
and white amongst the
canned fruit salad and
plastic forks cold-coddled beneath
electric light