Learning to sew by Amanda Ferguson

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.