April

April
by Katheryn Stripling Byer

I pull the green yarn
looped around my needle
through a stitch and move on
to another. Single
crochet’s what they call
it and for larger stitches
there are more loops
you must gather and
control. You’ve double,
treble, double treble
crochet as the stitches
hook into a sweater
or a shawl or what’s more
common, rippled afghans
if you’re patient.
Woman’s work they also
call it, making something
out of almost nothing,
some new pattern from
a ball of yarn. My
mother did it and her
mother and her mother’s
mother fashioned doilies
out of thin white thread
while I looked on. She
said such fingerwork
calmed women’s nerves by
making them take pains
to pass the time. It’s true
the chains link up
so quickly you may hardly
notice when it’s time
to turn. All afternoon
I pull the green yarn
looped around my needle through
these countless stitches
sliding past my arms.

Alma: Poems
Phoenix Press, 1983