I’ve had blog block…that and an operation (routine, fine).
I had started to think that the general anaesthetic had erased the part of my brain which makes things…..no poems, no frocks, no embroidery, cake still possible but that’s just following a recipe…..
And then….I had a coffee (it’s not that unusual, in fact it happens daily) with the Voice of Sanity at the lovely Hand Made Food caff in the village and we laughed a lot and normality began to resume (with the help of The Divine Comedy played at full blast) and this came out….
Stitch
We compared stitching notes
she and I
after I’d been in and had it done,
after sleeping and making corn dollies
and threading poppies through their limbs.
Standing at the net-curtained window of a tall hospital in town
before the needles went in,
nerves stretched and high pitched
I watched the pigeons landing on the roof opposite:
males fanning their feathered backsides
irridescent chests puffed,
dipping expectant heads to unmoved others.
And I watched the people in the office
six floors up
drinking polystyrene coffee at their desks
where piles of files lean in
a hot room,
the smell of sleep and sour morning breath
masked with mint and something from duty free.
There’s a florist on the street across the road,
buses and taxis reflecting in its
curved windows,
with a single stone urn
of cobalt and indigo delphiniums and white roses
ready for scooping into ribboned armfuls
for new mothers.
I get it.
Even in the heavy headed droop of barely there consciousness.
It’s like basting:
it’s flesh couture.
There’s more going on, on the inside,
in the millefeuilled layers
of my body,
each carefully stitched back together.
We are
two seamstresses
nodding agreement.
(The photograph’s not mine. Thanks to Hand Made Food)
makemeafrock 