Emily Sews

Selecting nouns like needles

sharpened to their tasks:

thorn exceeding deed -- less

than that the seamstress asks.

Featherpoint embroiders

rubies fine as pearl --

heartsblood-beaded borders

edge stitches of a girl

whose lines lift undisordered

from threads' unruly curl --

Arachnid verse recorded

in painful pricks of purl.

A pixilated picture,

thought knotted so and spaced --

spare scarlet sampler, fixture

of one life's wounded place.

The hoop hung high at mantle,

"Clock stopped!" clipped crimson there

on white -- fabric of maiden

whose fingers poems tear.