Irish lace and linen - she had the design right, the skirt's mountain-laurel pucker, but no hooks and eyes. So she sewed me in, a last-minute needle through my first communion - my marriage to Christ. The next time it was Grandma's pale wedding gown, a supple splurge of curdled satin. Her damned needle basted me in again, a lean noose loop. Through a succession of dresses her loose stitch has pulled pattern and fabric to the scissor's mouth. Only now I realize that's what she's always done; gathered me into the paradigm, a slack abstract. I bend my coffin cloth of flesh basted hem to skin. She's forgotten the hooks and eyes again, and sewed me in. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORTRAIT OF A MOTOR CAR by CARL SANDBURG SIXTEEN MONTHS by CARL SANDBURG THEN LAUGH by BERTHA ADAMS BACKUS THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by SAM WALTER FOSS WHERE THE PICNIC WAS by THOMAS HARDY TO HIS WINDING-SHEET by ROBERT HERRICK ECHO by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE INDIAN SERENADE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY MOUNTAIN PICTURES: 2. MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSETT by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |