Molly O’Dell lives in southwest Virginia. She received an MFA from the University of Nebraska and has published several collections, including a chapbook titled Off the Chart, the multi-genre collection, Care is A Four Letter Verb, and Unsolicited 96 Saws and Quips from the Wake of the Pandemic.
Certain Future
She cuts or tears one to two inch wide
strips from a stash of fabrics—
saved from old clothes or remnants
of garments she made her children.
She lines up plaids, prints, stripes and checks
then drapes them over her wobbly wood
drying rack, to carefully arrange bright
red strands among the others.
For hours she sews the slips together.
It’s easy to trace the trail of thread
in cloth to the thrum of the motor,
and intend the presser foot forward
with her foot and eye fastened together.
She does not hear another shooting,
see earthquake victims, fecund flood waters
or cold Ukrainian refugees.
Without a single snag,
from scraps of color, memories
and outdated designs, fresh cloth
forms. She composes hems that sing.
