Loom

by J.A. Pak

picture the loom
yarns woven still
our tumbling lives
taut against the calloused fingers
of a woman whose duty
is rhythm

landscaped rhythm
our universe within a loom -
whose pleasure is a woman's duty
whose art her heart so still -
dull clicking of wood-pealed fingers
sweep in situ the theories of our lives

order must mean our lives
teaching taught rhythm
cripples the fingers
stretching infinity against a loom
to force souls still -
life death's duty

why force a girl into duty
her will can tune our lives -
impossible she won't sit still
torrents of questions gaping rhythm
womanhood (or death) must loom
girls only slip your knotted fingers

so first it's your fingers
the sound magicked duty
the loom
curious cats and seven lives
dancing to a rhythm
make even little girls sit still

Mesmer wasn't the first to sit girls still
it begins with the itch in the fingers
your rhythm her rhythm
so mesmerized, because duty
is the raveling of our lives
each strand of life licking the loom

clicks of rhythmic duty -
fingers keep our lives
curiosity death handkerchieved in a loom

This poem was "inspired by a fairy tale I read as a child. In this tale, a little girl goes from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, curious about the details of the world. She ends up in a cave where a woman sits weaving the actions of the entire world on a loom. The woman teaches the child, who's mesmerized by what the loom will reveal, to weave, the little girl becoming the old woman, weaving until another little girl comes, each little girl weaving the older woman's death. The cycle is of course endless, the girl, the woman, the woman, the girl, bound by the duty to the loom. Fate?"--J.A. Pak