| If ever I write an autobiography | ||||||||
| let it be made of string | ||||||||
| —upcycled | repurposed | free | clearance | |||||
| wildflower landscape gradient | ||||||||
| homespun angora | ||||||||
| —but then the string | ||||||||
| will need to be threaded | ||||||||
| woven | ||||||||
| crocheted | ||||||||
| knitted | ||||||||
| just like rocket wires before a journey | ||||||||
| to the moon | —space travel | |||||||
| is always in my future | Cosmic stitches | |||||||
| will need new names | not single crochet | half- | ||||||
| double crochet | double crochet | |||||||
| but quarter note | half note | whole note | ||||||
| treble clef | ||||||||
| —a musical naming convention | ||||||||
| appropriated for measuring length not of sound | ||||||||
| but of loops | And now that the most beautiful scarf | |||||||
| I have ever seen requires both | ||||||||
| crochet and knitting needles | ||||||||
| this is the moment | ||||||||
| when my British fiber crafts walk | ||||||||
| across my fingertips to Poland | to the Czech | |||||||
| to Russia | ||||||||
| and knitting patterns | ||||||||
| that never knew the simplicity | ||||||||
| of a miniature shepherd’s crook | ||||||||
| This is how I rewrite history | ||||||||
| —with thread and yarn and string | ||||||||
| across a tangled ancestry | ||||||||
| that has little to do with me | ||||||||
| until I fashion it from nothing | ||||||||
| and next-to-nothing | One dimension | |||||||
| becomes two | which becomes three | |||||||
| if I add sleeves | and there | |||||||
| we all are | ||||||||
| in a garment fit for travelling | ||||||||
| from here beyond the stars | ||||||||