After Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle by Remedios Varo

With eyes downcast,

Obediently

Embroidering Earth

Soil tapestry

The matrons watch

Panoptically

Their charges sew

Alchemically

No Cluny lace

Nor Genoese,

Filet crochet,

Nor silk Maltese

A quilt of fields

Patchwork of tree

Mountain duvet

Crust filigree

Our eye alights

On one jeune fille

Whose needle paints

Subversively

In her tableau

An unnamed He

Appears in thread

Clandestinely

Upon her hands

A thimble, She

Sews unbeknown

A silken sea

To speed the ship

Her lover steers

And stitch by stitch

Her lover nears

Image available at: https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/remedios-varo/embroidering-the-earths-mantle/

Nancy Adams is an academic librarian, medical educator, and poet living in central Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. Her poetry has been published in several central Pennsylvania publications, including the Patriot News and State College Magazine.