Grandma's
stretched the quilt
around the hoop.
Her needle's rhythm,
a casual puncture.
Across the cloth, holes
you can hardly see.
I have always wanted to sew,
but my hands knotted,
couldn't follow.
When I was young,
I wished hard to be measured
by a man's hands.
A biblical knowledge,
no woman could explain to me.
The thread fills the space
the fabric makes for it, as if
it too had waited its whole life
for a grander design.
It wasn't what I thought.
Grandma says,
trace the tree’s motherline: my body
to my sisters' to my mother's to my grandmother's
just as the thread’s green spreads
to the leaves' jade tips.
Our shadows,
a knowledge
I can cool my need
beneath.
Ruth Williams is the author of a poetry collection, Flatlands (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), and two chapbooks, Nursewifery (Jacar Press, 2019) and Conveyance (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Currently, she is an Associate Professor of English at William Jewell College.
Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s National Poetry Month project: Sing the Body: A Collection of Poems Praising Our Selves!
With support from Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab (WPHL) and Florida International University’s Center for Women and Gender Studies, we are publishing poems that celebrate body positivity and our selves.
In addition to publishing the poems as poems of the day, 10 select Sing the Body poems will be displayed on FIU’s main campus near mirrors and places where women encounter themselves. These poems will live in a dedicated portfolio on our website.
Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting SWWIM Every Day! Happy National Poetry Month!
