The Seamstress

She spots a coil of singed thread

Lying in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory’s ashes:

all that remains of the cloth.

            Its black tip softens to a warm yellow.

            She mistakes it for a strand of

            hair that has fallen off another girl’s head;

The girl that had sat in front of her in the aisles

as they worked.

The girl with the blonde hair.

            Hair that she had always admired.

            Silken hair that had been softer than any thread

            put into the machines.

Hair that had been

laced through her scalp

by a divine seamstress.

            A seamstress who had knitted her skin into cloth.

            Who Draped it over her body,

            and stitched it to her tendons.

Who sewed nails

to each finger

and veins beneath her skin.

            A seamstress who braided her stomach

            with intestinal yarn

            and her lungs with thick cotton.