Technique
Laura-Gray Street
Anchor point threaded to
a frame point, then a bridge.
Frame joined, now spokes
for pivoting through sticky
spiral to centering hub.
Then the wait for something
to land, relinquish. So fine
is your radius of cross-
stitched glue, each night’s
hunting wears it threadbare;
each morning you must
swallow the dregs. Yes,
of what you’ve produced.
You feed on your own
shopworn paths. The taste
is bitter and tangled but
keep that first bridge
line intact, a wisp of
syntax suspended—
nascent embroidery
to scaffold, fix
onto the moment
something in it
trembles.
~~~~~
Laura-Gray Street is author of Pigment and Fume (Salmon Poetry) and co-editor with Ann Fisher-Wirth of The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity UP). Her work has appeared in Yellow Chair Review, The Colorado Review, Poecology, Poet Lore, Terrain.org, and elsewhere. Street holds an MA from UVA and MFA from Warren Wilson. She is associate professor of English and directs the Creative Writing Program at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA. More at www.lauragraystreet.com.