A STITCH IN TIME

Memory
passes through
the eye of the needle

I purse my lips
coat the thread
with spit

one eye
closed
one eye open

pass it like a baton
to my mother sewing
on  a loose button

the needle
a little silver fish
dashes in

and out
a frayed
shirt cuf

I walk down a street
in New York
as memory

whisks me back
to an Irish kitchen
a kettle whistling

and my mother cursing
"Ahhh son can you
thread that for me!"