Jellyfish

// Clara Fang

Grandmothers and maidens
in Victorian night gowns,
white caps spilling filaments of hair.
Sewing eternally at their tables,
skirts billowing,
trailing clouds of thread.
Look, but don’t touch.
When the knife cuts into the onion,
how it guards with needles
and teeth its solitude
and snow white chastity!

Girl in the attic
watching by the window
in her white uniform
and catholic shoes,
let loose the stitching
one long mantle
into the woods
into the world,
a way out of there.