A summer evening in late June, light paling into dusk and colours lessen
Rattles from the kitchen as the ritual teas are prepared
I sit making a cardigan for a baby’s birth-

Knowing what it is to be a mother, I think of she who will carefully fasten the buttons
She who will, like me, cry at the news nowadays and lay her hands on a softly breathing body to find peace

Here I sit, fingers hitching and flicking  the yarn between needles
Knitting is a kind of prayer
Each stitch a supplication. Each turn a fresh appeal:
Let this mother meet her baby.
Let this mother meet herself, arriving

The prayer grows, row by row

This mothering is an unhealable wound
This mothering is a cardigan, made to fasten.