Unravelling Between Poem by Rosemarie Sprouls

(For What Binds Us)

There are names for what binds us: .......
see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong..........
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud; ............ Jane Hirshfield


But look
how I have torn
our tear apart,
not given healing
the chance to knit
raw edges into a pink
numb lump,

picked
at the itchy
reminder of early
injury and watched
it ooze and bloom
like an old toothless
smile - Greeting me -

What divides us
is more than the pain
of a bitten and bleeding
cuticle that I just can’t
leave hang, more
than the inability
to weave limbs

and cleave
equally; its grasping
that something dead
will never heal
while feeling the ghost
limb between us,
its invisible ache


comforting me,
betraying me.
Still we move
through the motions:
I bare my full breast
for our baby’s
teething gums; he craves


my pink sore
nipple, clamping hard
on the white forgiveness
which always comes
with the relief
of pressure. Time
and time again

I feel
myself smiling
back at this child
and at every deep
gulf of consequence
before and beyond
him, knowing

that I will
decorate
all the wounds
we create with shanty
lace gauze, certain
this diffused camoflage
will prickle each

morning’s first
inspection.
White threads -
the only purity
attached to
the what that comes
next.