We learned to weave, braid
what we had woven, practiced
the known knots so
that on the day when deftness woke us
we were able to fasten
what we knew and climb
ourselves up and out of our many rooms
We built ladders, suspension bridges,
nets for sleeping or falling,
ruined our thumbs on the work
monkeying that time
feeling finally free and able
eating the yolks of each broken day and when
we realized no more desire
our daughter, her child’s fingers remembered,
set about picking the knots,
reverse engineering
the heart we had invented,
until our structures became ropes
and the ropes became strings,
the strings became fibers
and the fibers became twist and thread
in a heap carted to the parts stash,
the how-to in reserve, palleted, waiting
for the day it occurred to her to sew
the things she had been tearing,
which was new and exciting
for a time and then, holding a thread,
she thought to twist it until it became a rope,
and then to tie this piece to that
–
Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and Pushcart Prize (2024) nominated poet. His work has appeared recently in the engine(idling, Cleaver Magazine, and Copihue Poetry and is upcoming in Hiram Review. Disappearing by the Math, a full-length collection, was published by Silver Bow in 2024. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge foothills of Virginia.
© 2024, Matt Thomas
Halfway Down the Stairs 