Balaclava

Balaclava

1 watch her from the sofa, holding my coffee,
the fire ablaze, an empty bottle of wine.
With nimble fingers she looks across to copy

from a pattern, slowly leads the first soft line
along to its ordained and foretold end
connected back to the needle's metal spine.

The next row follows on like a close friend,
hooked back to the start on pre-arranged hoops,
each curled stitch a little fisherman's bend:

the rest march out one by one like woollen troops.
She goes on like this for an hour while 1 sleep,
but a fault appears dashing her early hopes

and she picks it apart into an unravelled heap
dismissed as a first flawed attempt, a snake
scribbled up beside her, a cartoon sheep.

So she starts again while I get more cake
using exactly the same length of yarn
but with new resolve to make no mistakes

Clicking along, her needles follow the plan,
or should we call it a hidden design?
It's unseen in any single row's narTow span

but will be clear to all when, after we dine,
I'll unwrap it and in mock surprise proclaim it grand
knowing that out in the night, frosty but fine,
my head will stay warm and it will finally be mine.

Peter Keeble