Ode to Upholstery

the Sunday mornings hang in clouds of smoke

above my head where thoughts of you reside

recalling times my clumsy fingers broke

some stitch or knit your fingers deftly tied,

or when you’d measure out your thread

to fix the errors made

and sew it back anew,

i knew when watching as you spread

the fiber that i frayed,

i never would be you.

a box of decades stored in bobbin spools

unwind within my open palm their loops,

reversing ages into circled pools;

a single tangled knot erupts and droops,

undone so quick and dripping thick

through winding yards of years

you spun around the drum

before the plunging needle prick,

this moment reappears

along the lengths i thumb.

what cluttered racks of vinyl rolls to stack

against the walls where once you puffed your pipe,

the only imitation i could crack

now burning in my teeth, a cherry ripe

as molten metal cast in molds

before the water chills

and shapes the studs with steam

to snaps you press through sheets and folds

of layered woven twills,

to hide the lonely seam.

the intersecting threads of me through strands

of silken plumes, they needle past my lips

from dying gears that spin beneath your hands

to weave the pattern drawn by fingertips

upon the fabric draping down

in wrinkled folds of cloth

unrolled in hazy rooms,

like ones you sketched with focused frown

and cut to clear the swath

of me that burns and fumes.

these empty rooms of tools you left behind,

as if some day i’d understand their use,

instead infected specks of rust i grind

with oiled stones on spinning spokes that loose

eroded flakes of showered flames

and spray the ground with red,

the dust of wasted time,

each careful pass of sparks reclaims

the last remains you shed,

the gleam that hides in grime.

• September 2025

Submission History

Date	Publication	Status
September 3, 2025	Hopkins Review	Pending
September 5, 2025	Global City Review	Pending
September 6, 2025	Funicular Magazine	Pending
September 14, 2025	Princemere Poetry Prize	Pending
September 14, 2025	Wildsound Writing Festival	Pending