Red and Blue

© 2007

Silver needles

Cotton thread

Mending gathered in a heap

Tattered edges

Knit unraveled

Should be discards that I keep

Clicking scissors

Broken silence

By the baby’s soft, sweet snores

House in darkness

Save the front room

Where I fight my fabric wars

I know I have neighbors

Who would toss these things away

They must know secrets I am wanting

How do they keep the dogs at bay?

Tiny stitches

Needle pricks

Metallic tasting blood abates

Stack is smaller

I’m so tired

But much more toil awaits

Frail seams

Need reinforcing

On jeans far past their prime

Note the thinness

Of the fabric

Perhaps I should not mend this time

If I purchase one new pair

Put off a bill or two, what then?

But the spool of my security

Is winding dangerously to end

The clock beeps

It’s eleven

There are dishes waiting still

Fold the jeans

Delayed decision

Rests on the dining windowsill

Kitchen Window

Casts reflections

My, that pale face looks bleak

Yellow sponges

Washing plates

While tired eyes begin to leak

In the silence no one minds

If I should cry a minute or two

It solves nothing, it serves nothing

But I don’t know what else to do

Night routines

Can feel so lonely

In the late and silent hours

Take my pills

Brush my teeth

Lay out the towels for morning showers

Tell myself

I’ll just work harder

And find a way to make ends meet

teach more lessons

sell on ebay

find that new job I desperately need

I am looking, but

Days are counting down

It’s the unknown after that I dread

A home, a child, a husband hang in the balance

On a checkbook in the red