(no subject)

[apiphile]

turning another page to the endpapers

I've finished another diary.
It doesn't matter, I guess,
the world is on fire, after all,
but I've finished another embroidered diary
And the number left is dwindling.
The grandmother whose hands crafted these
Has been dead these seven years;
there will be no more fabric-swaddled
hardcover books for me to scribble
my various miseries into;
with each volume I complete,
she shrinks out of my hands.
It doesn't matter, I guess;
she was fading, fragile, exhausted,
wanted nothing more than to rest,
hadn't been at her best for decades,
and no one is ever quite as we gloss them
when they're gone; imperfect understanding
imperfect kindness, imperfect connection;
but I've finished another embroidered book,
and my hands linger on the stitches
that were already growing uneven;
thinking: her hands touched this
and now they don't touch anything.
Forgetting: her hands touched me too,
another of her partial creations,
and for now
I am still here.
But I've finished another book,
and it doesn't matter, I guess,
that I'm running out of years.