Kelly R Samuels

Wool as Gatherer, or Seven Years

I learn that Roman brides hung it on the threshold
of where they were found ever after

             and that a particular Irish pattern mimics
the highs and lows, that undulation.

I’m told to give the wool-lined
glove, and then the other

for the winter that broods and waits.

Yet, even the minuscule prompts irritation, the shedding
of whatever contains. Recall.

I will not want the scarf, no matter
its color. Or so artfully wrapped.

The sheep with the black faces were always my favorite.

How awful their cries when cornered in the yard
and funneled to where they were held by the legs
and shorn of.

I couldn’t quite see clear that day. Couldn’t catch

my breath. Stood out of the way of, looking out

on the bare field.         Knit one. Knit two.

You’ll cover me with the throw, thinking you are kind.

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Kelly R Samuels is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have appeared in Salt Hill, The Carolina Quarterly, The Pinch, Sweet Tree Review and RHINO. She lives in the Upper Midwest.