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.