Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

October 3

SEAM ALLOWANCE


The space given and taken, the space used to bind us and sew us fast.
The permission for humanness and the need for seams to make us whole. The narrow margin, a shoulder on which I lean, the slender strip a place of refuge.

Darts are snipped to hug the curves; I bend to fit to life.
Our nearness; being my own part and part of more.
Planning, and a pattern cut to order with allowances made for fraying and fragility, allow me to feel woven into a web of what is and still hope for more. The unfinished garment is taking shape, easing and stretching.

And before my eyes, pins held between the teeth of God.


Keep strong words on a high shelf you have access to.

*
Have Faith
Strange and wonderful tragedy
takes you away from me
and I don’t know how it is that you return,
but you do and I thank God,

But I’m not sure it was God’s idea
that you went away or that you came back,
though, I am sure, He missed you every bit as much as I did.

I revolve the freshness of you in my mouth like candy;
I swirl, but don’t want to crack open.
Honeymoons are for people who live comprehendible lives;
we fly to each other and cling like raptors plummeting to the ground.

You leave your mark upon me I do the same for you;
we are none the worse for the wear.
I stand in the gush from the hydrant,
soaked in the pleasure, forgoing the safety.

The world may burn down again tomorrow,
I remember that it has before, but I am wiser for the singeing
and weathered with soot in my eyes and charcoal piled roundabout my legs,
yet I’m still standing and you are back from the dead
and I think of you as Lazarus.

And now we will live the comedy
for life is what lay ahead,
we took the hit of death before its time
and so must be off the hook for the rest.