Original Work Week Two

I took the line "the one road a thread into a small spool" from Anne Marie Macari's Leaving Settefrati from Deep Travel.

The one road threads into a small spool that is Spoleto.
Nuns walk up and down the road to St. Mary twiddling their Rosaries
like my grandmother twiddles her thread.
What do Nuns think of when they walk
through the train station in Rome?
Past the couple, parted for weeks, reunited through kisses.
Past the man sleeping in a wheelchair, covered by the red and orange striped quilt who's twin sits
on my bed. Made last year by grandma.

She told me a story of the Nuns over the whir of the sewing machine,
pumped the pedal in time with the Beethoven in the kitchen.
The Nuns say the Rosary as they walk, repeat over and over to ward off
Gelato cravings and judgements of the girl with the peace, love, and sex shirt
next to the half naked poster of a Colors over Benetton model.

I stare at the shirt, study the threads, stitches, criss cross patterns of the text.
Remember the needle bouncing up and down, life in a moment.
Remember Keats, who wrote love into the wood of the English tree, and carried it to Italy
in his lungs.