Various kinds of pin and their uses
This pin is for piercing the tube before we medicate the cat in the fur on her neck.
She hates us for doing this, senses we are coming for her with our toxins.
This one is a safety pin. I open it, slide five or six others on before closing it again.
This keeps them all in one place, always ready.
Another pin is one of many with brightly-coloured heads.
I don’t really sew but I know I can use these pins to hold fabric together.
Some pins are better described as paper clips,
curled around in their distinctive shape to hold papers together, secure.
There are pins people have inserted after they’ve broken bones, god forbid.
Can you even imagine the concept, the very idea.
Rolling pins. Obviously these don’t count, with their fat wooden ways.
Not a pin at all, more a utensil powered by me, or anyone who wants everything flat.
The thing is, all these pins cast shadows, that’s what she observed and told me.
I see it, their various grey echoes laid out and lengthened by the spin of light.
Pat Edwards is a writer, reviewer and workshop leader from mid Wales. Her work has appeared in Magma, Prole, Atrium, IS&Tand others. She hosts Verbatim open mic nights and curates Welshpool Poetry Festival. Pat has two pamphlets: Only Blood (Yaffle 2019) and Kissing in the Dark (Indigo Dreams 2020).