I didn’t know the late Bridget Zinn personally, but I was moved by her story. You can read about it in words better than mine from the Chicago Tribune.
Ms. Zinn’s first book Poison was published this
last week. She died of colon cancer at 33 (the same disease that took my husband’s
mother at nearly the same age), before the publication of her first book. In
support of her first book, we were asked to post about firsts in our own
lives.
I thought about returning to poetry – breaking through a long
drought (ten years) to start writing it again. It felt like a first – perhaps
the first time you see an old friend after years and years of separation.
Thanks for stopping by to read my poem about firsts. If you
can, please buy Bridget Zinn’s book Poison.
the first
like a needle you draw me
through the cloth.
like a needle, i know
how love is made.
nothing is new.
i feel the spinner’s hands
i know her age
she cannot hide it.
i feel the weaver’s breath
bent to the work
the knots took everything.
it is written there
in the lines of her mouth,
in the cloth itself.
like a needle you draw me
to the skin.
i know how it is made.
i know it is human.
nothing is new.
still we press against it
- eyes closed –
it feels like the first
sliding through our hands
silk, water
only cloth.
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