So she won’t forget,
Mother stamps a metal
tag with 29, her age
when she delivered the sky.
Carefully, she hooks
a triangle of lead
to a wooden five-point star.
Seamstress, she rocks
on a celestial porch,
sips tea with lemon,
counts wormholes
in decking and constellations.
Tying secret knots,
she cross-stitches
aurora borealis,
capricious beryl of day,
embroidered night.
She untangles the yarn
of how to count
lost children.
A swarm of boys
hides behind
a waxing moon.
Her tools are many.
Mars, an orange croquet ball,
is nailed to the orbit
of a plywood hoop.
Black keys
of whispering pianos,
strips of skin
peeled from hands
that touched her
without asking.
Sewn with catgut twine,
whipstitched, yowling,
the youngest fears
are silenced. Her heavenly
objects are needed
for divinations.
Vengeance stitches
her taboret together.
She’s lost daughters too,
in firmaments of hair,
wreaths of every shade
except her gray.
