Knit/Purl
Rocking the chair one-footed, keeping breath,
a watch slipped in my pocket, unmarshalled heartbeat:
I love the things my body does
when I'm not looking.
The way it knows I’ll never trust myself
to do certain things, and so must learn them well
as to forget them. Somewhere inside the self
there hides not shadow, but so pale a light
that it fades from my view
until my doubt can cast it on the wall.
This morning, say, stabbing a knitting needle
again and again into a twisted stitch,
pissed off that I'd gone wrong somewhere, I looked
up in frustration; and only when my thoughts
had fixed on something else--a high bird humming
between two shadows in the oak outside--
did I look down and find my hands now ravelling
somewhere far past myself, accomplishing boldness
where I failed to sing boldness; in the endless baffling
of my branches, being fruitful.