How it must feel to unravel

language, words unspooling

in whorls of vibrant complication undone,

gilded fibers gliding through

cautious, blessed hands. And to stand

in the midst of a thousand unwoven

integers of silk and wool,

cashmere unwinding under polished fingertips,

and to continue the work,

untangling the meaning

of a single, knotted strand.

If I could only feel the threads

whispering across my palms, the

weight of a dialect meted out into yarn,

dyed fabric bleeding purple and blue into

my outstretched hands grasping at

any shred of comprehension.

But string theories catch on calloused flesh,

of which I have an abundance, undoing

the work of the past in side-tracked

spirals at clumsy feet. It is delicate

work, the unknitting of words,

pulling apart tapestries

of finest warp and weft,

unweaving language

into golden understanding.