The twenty-third poem from my poetry collection Conception.

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Needlework

I think it’s the jingles:
easy tunes and familiar words
– patterns you know off by heart
and the threads that pull you in.

Instantly, you’re sewn to the screen
with tight little stitches.
Sewn, not glued:
glue could be pulled apart,
stitches have to be cut.

To look at the intense absorption
stilling your expression,
anyone would think you part
of the most interesting,
most important tapestry in the world.

Yet I never see a smile embroider your face
the way it does when Daddy
chases round the table to tickle you
or when you sit on my back
and I buck like a bronco

or when you play on your own
in that proverbial cardboard box,
turning reinforced paper into a boat
cast loose on the pattern-free rapids of imagination.