FRED, THREADS AND HER

Looming on the horizon,
Blooming cotton—her eyes on,
Stranded at a distance,
Fred’s talk of threads
Are words she can easily follow.
She is a material witness
To the fact that Fred is hollow,
The cotton has him reeling,
Yet she cannot share his feeling.
A memory of cotton mills fills her mind,
Fred needles her but she knows he’s kind,
It was a darn strange thing,
She thinks perhaps Fred’s blind.

He used to have her in stitches,
As a jovial, plump boy in britches.
Now he never makes her smile,
Instead, about him she bitches.
Fred gasps loudly—a sudden stitch in his side,
Her aloofness is something he’s noticed and long denied,
And specifically now ignores out of pride,
Embarrassed enough, for the moment because he has cried.