Palm-Sized Vacancy

I start with the scraps no one saves—the awkward corner, the stripe too thin to be useful. No trimming, no dye. I let the shape dictate the lay. When I join them, I use a thick needle and unyielding thread, letting the seam pucker and show its teeth. There’s a place in the center where the cloth is simply gone. I could patch it, but I don’t. Instead, I ring it with the heaviest mending, as if to keep the absence from spreading. Some mornings, after rain, I see how laundry stains the entry tiles—never neat, always changing. I let my hands mimic that mark: stitch, pull, knot, begin again. The ceramic bits I press into the cloth, letting the cold edge butt up against the fraying thread. You see exactly where something is missing, and you see exactly how I tried to hold the rest together. It’s not a secret. It’s not a metaphor. It’s the work of watching, of keeping, of not hiding the places things don’t fit. Some things are only understood by the hands.