5.23.2011

Needle

My mother had a black Singer

sewing machine when I was very young.

It chugged along, making straight seams
like a stationary train engine spitting out track

or if I squinted just right I felt like I was
riding in a car, looking out the back window,

watching telephone wires swoop away
pole to pole along the shoulder of the road.

Once, entranced by the way it pumped,
I reached my finger up to touch

the thin bright shaft,
the part I loved best,

and now I can’t look
a needle in the eye

without thinking of that thread
still connecting us.

:: Joseph Green, in Crab Creek Review

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