To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew
The whir of the sewing machine fades
Like a faltering metronome.
If you can imagine each stitch
As a note,
You can hear a lone melody.
But you don’t know that yet.
You are too young, and it is too dark.
She’ll wait until the lights burn out,
And when she thinks you are asleep,
She’ll play that tune again.
One day, you’ll hear
Some love song on the radio
And understand.
The music crescendos—
The lights burn out, one by one,
And you remember
The needle’s steady hum:
The first love song you ever heard.
by Bradford Kimball
from Rattle Magazine, August 2023