Living Garment – Matthew M. C. Smith

Living Garment

At this moment, when we’re alone,
we bring out the living garment and hold it to the light
witnessing, still, its lustre of yesteryear.

We don’t know how we made it, how it came to be.
We see its threadbare elbow, an unstitched seam,
a cuff that frayed itself to thread, unravelling.

And we look closely at threads. How they fur between finger and thumb,
their loose microscopic weave; how strands hold in the twist
noting differences in colour. Even in darkness, a stitch gleams

with any gifting photon. We count on thread, stitches,
textured to a weave holding together our living garment.

…

Matthew M. C. Smith is a Welsh poet, published in Barren Magazine, The Lonely Crowd and Icefloe Press. He one half of the Dylan Thomas Birthplace podcast and editor of Black Bough poetry. Twitter: @MatthewMCSmith Insta: @smithmattpoet Also on FB.