by Marissa Bell Toffoli.
I have wished myself a weaver.
Kept scraps, cottons and wools,
lines from old notebooks,
letters, dream whisps,
Images I could fit in
to turn out something fresh.
Is it stealing to take from ourselves?
Or is it preserving, persevering?
Does everything have a breaking point?
We’ll be overrun if we keep it all.
Tighten the yarn, hold the line.
Hem and haw, avoid eye-contact.
A question can offer closure
or an opening. Transformation
is one answer. It seems to go
like this with emerging doubt:
like pulling a loose end, until—