The Patchwork Lady

The TV flickers mindlessly on;
repeat after repeat, but she
doesn’t notice. A click of needles;
a kaleidoscope of colours –
the yarns she works.

Joins each knitted piece together...
diamonds, squares, rectangles
oblongs and triangles, all for the sake
of those poor street-kids in Mumbai.

Fingers – stiff with age – misshapen
from arthritis, pick and probe
at the carapace of the righteousness
of her soul, and so they flounder,

as the curlicue of thread ravels,
and unravels, like a labyrinth of paths
inside her head all lead to a dead-end street –
struggles to make sense of the simplest stitch –
once, second nature to her.

She quits while she’s winning;
a heart – her ‘pièce de résistance’
is finally sewn into place...red as the roses
in a jam-jar on her table, and how
it bleeds.