What Price a Diamond
Five steel needles clack
in your lap, like the chatter of teeth
or the playing of bones.
By the squint of a rush lamp
more by feel than eye
you knit the blue gansey
each ladder, cable, herringbone
slip-stitched tight, seamless
to baffle wind, turn water.
You pick up at the row’s end
work your wrist, the pins,
and fashion a diamond
your mind on the herring fleet
the suddenness of storms
that can take a man down
no matter his prayers,
tangled with baited line,
frozen in blue.
You purl up a jewel close
to his heart, so if ever he rolls in
limp, with the night-wrack,
watchers will bring him home
your wet wool glistening,
straight to your door
on a cart that clacks
like five steel needles,
like the playing of bones.
Suzy Miles