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04/15/10 - (1)
Stitching Time
My days unravel faster than a Singer 552's side seam Running the length of a man's dress-pant leg panel, For the operator lifting the presser foot Before reaching the end of the heated needle's interminable run From ragged, unpinked bottom to unbanded waist.
Why I could, might, should, would equate the days of my life To the stitches of an industrial, pedal-clutch-driven sewing machine... Indeed, that I just did liken the tiny intervals of time, Binding the length of my double-chain-stitch heritage, To something so concrete, utilitarian, industrial, intrigues me.
Could it be, as I inch up on my sixty-ninth birthday, That memory, imagination, and something whirring in my blood Are conspiring to sew the fabric of the ragman I still am, Whose spirit yet solicits Washington Avenue, door to door, With a black, cast-iron Wilcox & Gibbs slung over my shoulder —
An itinerant mender of damaged or threadbare goods, Soliciting any job, no matter how labor-intensive, inexpensive, That might keep me in touch with my wandering ancestors, Whose sleeping shadows yet breathe in my fingertips, Insisting that I not let the stitches of my existence rip loose?
04/15/10 - (1)
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