Pinpoints of light straining towards the threshold through a soft warm mist. As though they would help him to see, to slip across barriers of being.
If I knew—
Blind beams behind opaque windows. As though in an act of desperation, a man might hurl a stone. The shuddering tinkle of shattered glass.
Here, he said, you take the stone.
Placing it in her hands so that she could feel it, roll it between her palms, sense it through her fingers. An ineffable, tangible continuum.
I give it to you, it's yours.
The whole, beautiful truth, God helping. Love solidly immured within its mineral heart. Ticking away the centuries, immune to change.
WOOLEN DIGNITY
The needle between her fingers
came to a pause as she smoothed
the seams of her life and lingered
over old threads of truth
she had stitched with her own hands
and bitten off her with her own mouth,
noticing how these had blended
with and become part of the cloth,
until her dimmed eyes could not tell
in the fading light which was which.