Back Stitch

Back Stitch

Charissa Sylvia

I only embroider when the air is bitter,
(inside or out, it doesn’t matter).

The irony of the backstitch for me is this:

the way to move ahead is to turn
the needle back again, to grasp
in golden, threaded tension,
the weight of our frail humanity
and the long game of redemption.

The other irony for me is this:

the backstitch is the strongest stitch.

---

Charissa Sylvia
Poet

Charissa is a pastor’s wife and homeschooling mom living in New Mexico on the sprawling edge of the Gila Wilderness. She writes in real, extraordinary time and is so grateful to have been published in Ekstasis, The Rabbit Room Poetry Substack, Calla Press, The Fallow House and The Windhover.

 Photography by Beyzaa Yurtkuran