Needles & Thread

 

I remember her sat at an old Singer sewing machine

Turning the handle in the half-light of autumn

Making dresses and skirts for herself

So that precious pennies could be invested in children

 

She made me a Lone Ranger mask

From remnants of black cloth

She had left from one of her creations

I wore it with pride and a whoop and a holler

 

When she wasn’t sewing she was knitting

the clicket clack of needles through Z-cars

the needles I used to bash cardboard boxes

in an attempt to be Wakefield’s Ringo Starr

 

Jumpers and cardigans made to measure

For wife and father and children

Balaclavas and gloves and mittens

We never felt the cold nip of winter

 

She made things for others

And decked out her family

In multi-coloured cut-offs and remnants

Of cloth and wool from her magic basket

 

She left us unable to pick up her needles

The sewing machine gathering dust in the bedroom

But I know that somewhere she is making do and mending

And sewing wings onto angels