Warp and Weft
by David Brady
Wool ghosts, sacred scars
etched in thread; desert hues
bleed stories wrung from ancient hands.
Spirits hang, draped in time. New,
she whispers, but canyon blood screams old.
A shrine thrums, a low, deafening ache.
Black and red, a desert storm, yellow's fever,
brown's despair. Not my spirits, theirs.
Sleeps tug-of-war
sinew strained, breath raw.
The loom's echo claws,
pulling,
colors erupt:
blood-red rage,
umber's choking dust,
black devouring all.
Woman walks, a shadow
stitched to her heel.
Home's her fragile prayer,
the caught door screams.
He waits, a wolf in her bed,
the rug screams her soul.
What spills from the weft, old ones?
Whose terror weaves this, dread.
Each knot a broken prayer,
each color a stolen breath.
The flaw, the weaver's plea,
a crack for the light to flee.
I touch,
and the rug touches back,
I release,
and the night pulls again.