2011 Charles Shull Contest for Traditional Poetry, Third Place
Jo Barbara Taylor
Knit 2 Together
a common knitting pattern direction
Knitting needles click clicking along
like a song, create loops and bridges
in fabric, a weave that grows warm and strong
like brown baked bread folded in soft edges.
Our lives roll and unroll through the days,
fiber and color in skeins of yarn twined
in knits and purls. We unravel, ‘come frayed
from time to time, lose tension in the bind,
but find the loose thread to pull and darn,
crochet the hole through which we fall, the hook
looping each scattered stitch in fresh yarn.
Life resumes a steady beat like a book
of sonnets rhymed and metered. Needles click
and we weave our fabric deep and thick.
