Folded Napkins
The napkins were cut and woven in her dad’s barn that he and his dad built from the broken oaks.
Each clump of cotton piled up in front of her
Leave and left
She thought
The warp was fixed on her loom
And that was easy because it stayed
But the weft was the lateral thread that moved
Leave and left
The barn was brown and gray, yellowed with hay
And dotted with specks of cotton that she lay
She was 12. She argued with her mom to wear her newest Easter dress for work that day.
She was crying as her little hands worked the loom.
She was thinking about the rock she found under the wheel of a stuck cart trying to pass by on the sandy road by the green border of her farm house.
She had removed it earlier that day so the boy driving his horse carriage could go on and get unstuck. She cried because she loved him.
She never wanted him to be stuck, so she untucked the rock from his cart. It was as tortuous as the itchy bits of cotton she forced together.
She could hear his cart still leaving in the wadded cotton she was weaving
The sun oranged the weft
in its movement from right to left
That she made as she wept
It was time for dinner. And her mother had cooked a meal.
So she folded the napkins
And sat perfectly in her bluebonnet dress in front of the cotton napkins
Ready to be opened again.
Copyright © Lee Etheridge | Year Posted 2024
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