i. Clotho

You spin veins into the womb,
spooling a pink bud to burrow
into soft wall of membrane and
flesh: wet and ready. Throbbing
with new blood, outside these
cushioned walls a mother
is screaming.

ii. Lachesis

You weave your tapestry
the dye bleeding from your
fingertips into patterned beauty.
This sweatshop existence,
where months are counted by
sanguine-soaked sunsets,
marks a worldly progression
and a forgotten survival.

It started with the animal
blood you squeezed onto
virginal sheets. You speak
and feel in fragments for
to be wholesome is to be
penetrable – here dirt breeds
dirt to become mud. You
must drink something if
not nothing.

The rhythmic quotidian is
your pulse wherein ancient
songs are sewn and knotted.
Some thousand-and-one nights,
you have laboured, you have
created, lacing your tapestry
with ancient dust.

iii. Atropos

You are left at the loom
threading your own shroud,
and the three fates stand by
your side. At night, lying on
the earthen hearth you watch
their faces in the light of
glowing embers.

The women coo to you,
whispering their stories in
your muffled ear, lulling
away into dreamless sleep.
The scissors flash in the
morning light.
You unravel.