Darn Emily Cullen

Darn

We mend what we love.

After ten fruitless minutes of squinting through spectacles to thread through the miniscule eye of a needle, I delve

deeper into my sewing kit for one with a larger slit, backstitch into the fray where the tear begins, start to patch a white petal on my black floral dress.

I feel like Dorothy Wordsworth who devoted hours to darning and transcribing, darning and transcribing as image and

rhythm unspooled but no doubt she was neat where my effort is crude. Now I spot that I forgot

to turn the cloth inside-out.

Emily Cullen