Knitting yarns

I think of cable knits, my Grandma’s arm
encased in pastel blue, the whirring click
of needles. We’d dream of fancy yarn; angora –
imaginary gasps of fineness. Tangles.
Acrylic’s best for washing and it comes
in all the colours. Her sweater shone with darns;
leftover twists of three-ply starred a plain
and serviceable boiled wool. Later,
we’d rake the embers ready for the morning,
tell our late night stories. Of my Grandad,
the coal miner, how digging wore him out,
lungs flecked with black dust. How she saw
her first orange after the war. It tasted
of sunshine, of silk velvet, glowing bright.