Take a breath before you begin.
Take another. Reach back to the time when your hands did this without effort,
When the craft lived in your fingertips.
Smooth the fabric, the vivid blue and red.
Lay over it the whisper thin pattern: a tiny dress, but bold.
A gift for a wild child.
Pin, and pin again. Think carefully before you cut; but do cut.
Give it all the care that she will not.

Ignore the ache in your shoulders from hunching over your work.
Forget the long-gone sewing room. Make peace with the dining table,
the old machine, the rusty neural pathways that once lead to Art.
Stop wondering why one day you reached inside
And found there – suddenly – the will to this work;
the urge to make, to form, to shape.
Attend only to the seams, the gathers, the tiny armhole facing.
Sew and press. Turn and press. Cut. Stitch. Bind.

Above all, finish. Make sure that you finish.
In the evening, when the light has gone away,
Take that last hem to the sofa, where you can rest your back.
Turn up the lamp. Put on your glasses. Thread the needle.
Make your stitches even. Make them beautiful, as you were taught.
In the circle of lamplight, feel the generations standing behind you;
Ghostly hands on your hands, guiding you, reminding you
That work is love.