Looseleaf Paper vol.1

Seamstress

The twinkling eye of her

Crystalline needle

Wove in and out of the bases

Of the fern plumes.

She had already crafted the bodice

From sheet moss,

Which laid beside her.

It was dark,

Very dark,

But she was accustomed to it.

Very few times

She came to the entrance of her home

Where the sunlight meekly peeked through

The crumbly cave ceiling

And the rainwater gathered

In a crystalline pool

To gather the lichens and ferns.

The gown she stitches

Is not one of her first;

Many dresses and corsets

Many ensembles and outfits

Have passed over her bare skin

Cool, smooth, white as marble.

Alas, a dress is not fond of keeping

When the materials you work with

Are plucked from their beds

And strung together

As a mad scientist would

With buried specimens of old.

Alas, she had no other choice,

There is no option of running down

To the seamstress, or tailor, or shop.

All that she needed existed within her cave;

It mattered not that her steady handed stitches

Would crumble to the ground as peat and humus.

(2017)