my grandmother taught me how to do it:
to see the headache
as a ball of blue light
to see a needle and slim
but strong thread
to thread the needle and begin to stitch
around the edge of the pain
to draw the string tight until
the pain shrinks and then
to take the ball and throw it away
and that’s what it took to get rid of hurt, she said back then,
and sometimes it works, i say now
i don’t know how well it works for other things —
history, accumulation, regret — my grandmother
hated my father for example
and he never disappeared —
but she made the most elegant lace
and her pillowcases were beyond compare
so something besides the headache indeed yielded to her needle
i am trying to forget that now
sitting here holding my head to one side
and thinking of the last conversation i had with you
the father i would never have had if it had been up to her
the redskin who soiled her baby girl
i was always her perplexing favorite
“i don’t like the indian peoples why you dress up like
the indian peoples”
i couldn’t tell her why it felt more right and i still don’t really know
but i never got any closer with you either, dad
and you’d drop gems like “this headache
would kill a white man” and you’d brush me off
when i tried to teach you how to stitch it away
i wish we’d had a sensible story
i wish we’d had a stitchable life
and we don’t talk much anymore, i know
when we do i end up with a headache, don’t you
but i’m not stitching you away
i cannot do that
there’s been too much of that here already
and we need each other undiminished
by embroidery
and remote viewing
Dark Matter 