The Emblem
The Emblem
She sewed her emblem on my shirt
(while I was wearing it)
And it hurt.
She used a single strand of her hair for thread.
(I had seen her use the same strand as a leash for a dragonfly.)
The needle was
(coincidentally)
As sharp as a needle.
She sewed inexpertly.
Long thimbleless fingers pushing steel
Through the emblem
And the shirt
And my skin
And out of my skin
And through the shirt
And through the emblem
Over and over.
I winced at all the u-turns.
When she was done she cinched it with a hard tug.
She had to lean close to cut the thread with her teeth.
(Her hair smelled like wheat and dusk.)
And I wore that shirt.
And time passed.
(On the emblem was stitched her name in gas station cursive. Did I tell you?)
And the sun and the wind and the rain
Turned that shirt into tatters.
A ragged flag of an unknown country.
But the emblem remained, a faded reminder.
Sewn to my chest.
And that was the way it was.
Until eventually
After the passing of a long heave of starless nights
And an effervescence of summer evenings
And a slumbery of afternoons
And a blearyness of dawns
And after the crossing of many rusting bridges
And way too many elevator rides
And silent taxis
And fluorescent places
The emblem wasn’t there anymore.
(It had fallen away and I hadn’t noticed it.)
But you can still see its oval outline
In the white tracery of scar tissue exactly where
She sewed her emblem on my shirt
(while I was wearing it)
And it hurt.
Miami, Summer, 2010
Also appears in Mipoesias Poetry Journal.
