The Dress Maker’s Daughter

by Lind Grant-Oyeye

Her hands hold spindles of memory

thread as thick as a bungee jumper’s cord,

on patches of ripped jeans.

She speaks in a voice, old like yesterday:

“Hem those rough edges with your

silky hands and feel the smoothness

of what is left on the outside.”

“Let decorative buttons cover

each hole, like sand covers the dead. ”

How she speaks as one who has fixed weak sheet

unto weak sheet, with the strength of old pins.

But I speak as one, who knows—

Even strong dresses, do not keep forever.

* * * * *

Lind Grant-Oyeye is an award winning poet of Nigerian descent. She has work published in literary magazines and anthologies worldwide.