you would start before breakfast
like a small meditation
at least twenty rows
to settle the mind
you would end as i drifted
to sleep wrapped around you
and you around me
our patterns entwined
with needles short and sharp

you knit me back together
what’d you go and do that for?
with needles short and sharp
you knit me back together
now here i lie, unraveled on the floor

days into weeks
and weeks into months
you gave me back my shape
made me whole
did you drop a stitch?
or why else did you do it?
after all that, why did you
grab that loose end and pull?

with needles short and sharp
you knit me back together
what’d you go and do that for?
with needles short and sharp
you knit me back together
now here i lie, unraveled on the floor

what are we but stories
woven together from fragments of facts?
the violence had ruptured my tale
so that it could not hold its form and it collapsed
but using your art you wove a new story
from the various parts of my past
how ugly must that patchwork tale have been
for you to do all that work just to take it back?

i once saw you pull apart
a sweater you’d finished
reuse the yarn
on a double-thick cowl
as i lie here unraveled
my only real hope
is that you are doing
something similar now