The Tricoteuse--a poem

THE TRICOTEUSE

She has brows like a knitting machine; teeth 

grinding, sliding back and forth, hands 

tense twitching, like the furies, knitting revenge 

into every stitch, like Madame Defarge, 

the tricoteuse. Like Nero, she could be knitting 

while Rome burned. For each

stitch that drops off the needle, 

another head will roll. Stitch on 

stitch, she builds a scaffold of reprisal 

to shore up her pain and punish her foes, 

fatally – clickety-clack. As she watches

the guillotine swing, she never lets go of those 

knitting pins, pinning elbows to sides, tight, 

pressing breasts together, like a turnkey, pointed,

like knives piercing nooses, tearing at thread 

and yarn. She never lets up on the rhythm of plains 

and purls and slip stitch over, knitting holes for the holy, 

knotting sutures for her bleeding wounds. She knits

her worries into the fabric, repetition relieving her 

heart’s terror. She experiences no trauma. The edge 

of life is taken off, woven into lacy borders, colours, 

a jacquard array, balm for her sorry soul. Falling apart, 

she knits to keep herself whole.

*

Wendy Freebourne, knit designer and poet.