"Yarn Spinner" by Pamela Mordecai

Yarn Spinner…

Inside she sits and spins, decanting gold  

and silver from her wrists. Her fingers bleed.

Day and then night. Myriad windows perch 

above her head brilliant birds. Through them 

she cannot see the river pirouette 

from a valley hung high, tumble, kneel deep 

into a basin blue as chiming bells 

set in obsidian rocks. Night and then day 

but she cannot observe the stars, the sun.

She scoffs air, laps sweat off her chin. Straining 

to listen finds she cannot hear even 

the wind. The walls leach marrow from her bones. 

The room adjusts around her shrinking frame 

of mind. She teases out a winking thread

curls it about a spool, then wheels and comes

again. Rich filaments bite through her skin

as she construes the pile of unspun wool, 

rovings of thought, symbols of winding cord, 

strings she makes hum, imagine up a poem 

to twist the tongue, cable to match a letter to 

a sound, a drill that interweaves syntax 

of word and necessary word, a song to bring 

a measured metre to the hands that drum

on ancient wood. But this can’t be a life.

Flapping flamboyant wings the windows preen 

and squawk, a flock cruising landscapes she will

not see again. The river in the rising sun 

spits, spurts, explodes resplendent as a veil

let fall to hide a bride. Marry she won’t 

locked in this tower where time goes. Her green 

flesh crawls fluted as wrinkled sea. Once she 

was brown and curious in the world, Now her 

illumination is a crusted bulb 

on a high wire. How did she come to this, 

within without an inkling of out, intent 

on weaving meaning as she strips it from 

herself? And still she feeds the iridescent mound 

so thick and plentiful it steals the light.. 

And are you sad alone? Not when I spin. 

And are you sorry for the yarns you make? 

No, for they keep the children warm. What if 

you die spinning a thread? Better than in my bed…

©  Pamela Mordecai 2010

from the manuscript,  LITANY ON THE LINE: SUBVERSIVE SONNETS IN THIRTY-THREE SUITES.


About the author:


Pamela Mordecai has written articles on Caribbean literature, edited and co-edited ground breaking anthologies of Jamaican poetry and Caribbean women’s writing, published textbooks, children’s books, four collections of poetry (Journey Poem, de man, Certifiable, The True Blue of Islands), a collection of short fiction, Pink Icing, and a reference work, Culture and Customs of Jamaica (with husband, Martin). Her play, El Numero Uno, had its world premiere at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in February 2010. A prize-winning poet with a PhD in English, Mordecai lives in Toronto.

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