Learning to sew
She takes my hands and we spread out the cloth.
Smooth it, our arms wide, ready for cutting.
Scissors glide along the endless yards of
afternoon and I wait for the hissing
of her spit on iron, hot enough to
make the fabric acquiesce. The iron
she says, dressed in did you make that yourself
admiration and seven years dead, is
always your friend.
Choose a thread that’s darker
than you think. A steady hand to pass it
through the needle eye. The quiet rasp of
in and out, of running, chain, blanket. Feel
the pins in my mouth, pins in her mouth. Our
lips rolled in, the opposite of kissing.
Amanda Ferguson lives in Oxfordshire and works for a local education charity. She has returned to writing poetry as her children have grown and (almost) left home Her work has previously been published by The Ekphrastic Review and Poetry Pea.