Housewife
(‘noun. (2) A small case for needles, thread and other small sewing items’)
The day he cut free
she watched him pack his panniers
with essentials.
Offered a mending kit
to sew on the buttons in his new life.
A housewife, a hussif.
A hussy.
She stabbed pins and needles
into a scrap of fabric,
spooled threads in a figure of eight.
As he swung down the road on his bike
she wondered if he had a puncture kit
to patch up his dreams,
but she had a pile of frayed cuffs to hem,
and it takes all your concentration
to keep the button holes neat.
Hannah Stone has two collections, Lodestone (2016) and Missing Miles (2017). She convenes the poets/composers forum for Leeds Lieder festival and comperes the monthly open mic Wordspace event in Horsforth.