Pins and Needles

 Here's another version of the idea of my past post on Back to School.

Back to School

Stand still, she lisps, pins protruding from her lips,

pins she punches into the scratchy wool draping my shoulders

as she pinches my waist. Owww  slips out and she frowns

at me, pinning darts in the bodice. I have been standing

still for hours: now, earlier in Bradner's as she pushed

hangers on the racks, the scraping grated on my teeth.

I have balanced, one foot to the other, as she paged through

McCall’s and Butterick’s pattern books, her monologue

punctuated only with a heavy silence when she waited

for my yes. Same as when her hands, stroked the light wools,

and traced the dotted swiss with her nail. This will make up

nicely, don’t you think?  I hold back my yes, and her glare

chasms my silence. I perch at her side when she pins pattern

to fabric and begins cutting, estimating out loud how long

before all the rough seams will be done on the

three dresses, two skirts, and one jumper she has elected

to be my fall wardrobe. I peel off  the fabric

pinned together over my skinny frame, and always

part of it will not come off, pinned to my slip. Always

there are the pins that prick my arm, pins that scrape

as I ease out of a shapeless dress, the one I wear to school

first of September, lightheaded and sweating, this

corduroy dress she has stayed up for nights sewing.

A dress I grow to hate. I only recall those pins that

marked me when I am stitching pink ribbons on my

daughter’s pointe shoes, dotting my fingers red.