A LOOSE THREAD

September 22, 2025 / John Grimmett

I gather the frayed edges
of my mornings,
folding them into
the corners of a soft-green towel.

Why not taste again that first cup of coffee,
late enough that the rising sun
was once a promise
and now a guarantee?

I will not trap grief in glass jars,
but I will name it:
the lilt of laughter,
gone slack in my throat,
the weight of twilight
pressing on my chest,
the phantom slippered steps
I can no longer take.

I remember dew on the grass,
how the spider-web held
droplets like fragile jewels at dawn.
I remember running,
child-like and barefoot
across cracked concrete:

The swing in the yard,
spray of water from a sprinkler,
shingles red-rust
on the roof.

Because though I have aged,
lost the fleetness of limbs,
folded into fewer motions,
I carry inside me
a bloom of kindness I didn’t plant:
a generosity of memory.

Tonight I’ll open the window to crows,
to moonlight on maple leaves,
to the scraping pulse
of cucumber vines
climbing fencewire;

I’ll let the dark come
and not be afraid
that I taught my heart
to hold night.
I will dance—maybe once—
on green shag carpet,
or in dreams,
shuffle my feet
where the floor meets light,
singing in the silence,
holding the broken pieces
of the earth in a hand
that still knows how to clasp.

I accept that sorrow
leaves fingerprints:
on the mirror, the skin, the tongue.

But also that joy
travels light,
a loose thread through the ordinary—
each breath
embroidered with possibility,
each day
an elegy.

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