Cross Stitch

Afterwards
I was left alone, at the edge
of a
a flattened
earth
just me
a measuring tape
a needlework
box
the one my mother gifted
me when I was 13, she always
desired for me to make the prettiest
cloak

afterwards, I stitched
a cloak, sitting at the
edge of the island that was no more

I stitched
and stitched and stitched
a penance
of whatever I found

I looked
around and found
my little island
scattered
so I gathered
and stitched it together
in the cloak

Cross Stitch

near
my foot was a heartbeat
it became
my first stitch as I began the cloak
neatly knotted in a herringbone
a red blob confessing with every beat
then a
cotton seed, the only one left floating
I meshed into a basting stitch
in loneliness it spoke to the yellow of
a few broken sunflower petals I tacked into the helm,
for there was no sun any more

a bluebird feather, worked into the cross-stitch design at the center
two more sparrow wings fluttered past me, I captured them into mid skirt
a few fireflies still blinking when I wove into the upper border
a back-run stitch held their luminosity together,
reminder of the fairy lights on my window at home
on the little island now no more

I stitched the names of every person I could find,
cross stitch after cross stitch
after cross stitch
afterwards