Come hear the click of aluminum needles
in the knitting circle. Girls in towering clogs,
women with MBAs and tidy satchels
and us plain-clothed hippies
sit in a circle under the moving shade
of nearby high-rises
where we learn and remember how to knit.

Let the promoters call this a fad,
Meditative Yoga. I enjoy
the way my nerves untangle,
and I enter an easiness
when my following a pattern
produces a sweater or scarf.

The spinner at the fair
turns a palm of wool into thread
and when she needs to replenish,
she finger-rakes the restful
angora rabbit in her lap.

When my grandmother taught me to knit,
I thought wool came from Woolworth's.
Child of the super-sonic years,
I assumed every girl
in the whole wide world
drove in her grandmother's Cadillac
to the dime store to buy pink yarn.

How was I to know it was not any specific string -
not a jump-rope, not silk pulled from a cocoon,
not binding around a tiny foot, nor fringe on a vest
that connected me to all other girls,
but the invisible ties females make when,
they're sitting in a circle, doing something with
their hands.

Bio: Anne Silver as been a poet since 1968 and holds two Masters Degrees - poetry and psychology, has been an expert handwriting witness for twenty years in court trials. Her current book, Bare Root: A Poet's Journey through Breast Cancer is available at her website, www.annesilver.com. Her first book, Instant People Reading, Career Press, has been in print since 1984. Anne has won the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs' contest, 'Sense of Sight' where 10,000 postcards will be printed in November, 2002 of “The Aroma of Dodger Blue.” Email: anneqd@yahoo.com