a sewing kit contains a needle and thread / scissors and other notions
last year I bought a shoe-shining kit which holds
two stiff brushes / a felt cloth / carbon black
polish made of wax and lanolin to waterproof / volatile spirits
a single can might last several months / or years even
my children’s sneakers / every six months / trash
this morning I took out the kit that had lost
its needle-threader and squinted / licked
the end of the blackest thread and stuck it through
the eye of the needle / one millimeter away from nothing
my children ask / why did you have us if the world is ending?
I answer / all my dismay and perplexity / even my threadbare yoga
pants and scuffed penny loafers / I want to last darned shined until
graffitied walls crawl with vines in the ruins of hurricane bloom
