My grandmother pinked all the seams,
protecting them with zig and zag
from an unravelling of the weave.
She taught me how to set in sleeves,
face a collar, match a plaid.
But above all insisted I pink the seams
that season of patterns and gabardine
so no dress would have a ragged edge
from an unravelling of the weave.
Outside our shade-drawn cool, heat
and prairie wind left corn fields frayed.
My grandmother pinked all the seams
while mourning doves relentlessly
called from poplar trees, unravelling
the hours, the griefs of the weave.
Bending to fabric, pattern, shears,
the needle’s eye blind to hopes mislaid,
my grandmother pinked all the seams
against the unravelling of the weave.
Sue Chenette wrote the documentary poem What We Said, about her first-hand experiences as a social worker
during Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Her latest collection, Clavier, Paris, Alyssum, is due out this fall.
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