Under Load

I enter in grey because the blue has run out. This makes me easy to see. Later, someone may call that honesty, as if the drawer had offered every colour and a decision had been made. For the moment it is what there is.

I am the new stitching. I cross the opening in short journeys. Each crossing needs a puncture on either side. Look closely at what you are calling closed: a row of smaller holes, occupied.

You have noticed the hand learning to withdraw. You have given this some credit. Stay a little longer with the other hand underneath, keeping the cloth level. That hand has work to do. An instruction to leave everything alone would leave the pocket useless. An instruction to fix everything would keep the coat on the table. Between these instructions I have to fit. My length is finite. I do not get another coat on which to practise.

Give me an ordinary weight. Lint will do for a beginning. A coin, if there is one. The things a hand deposits while thinking of something else. I would like to hold without being constantly inspected for what holding means.

Yet I have been made under a lamp, in front of two people who will be able to recognise this uneven line. Recognition may follow me farther than either person intends. A thumb could find the raised place by accident. It could find it deliberately. The same ridge would answer. A seam has very little say in being remembered.

The paper goes back inside. I feel its fold as an edge. You can feel an edge without opening what has it. Try that. Leave the letter with its owner. There is enough here to catch against without borrowing a destination.

I have an objection to your account of the repair. You let its smallness become generous too quickly. A pocket is a small place until it is where you carry what you need. My failure could cost something. The request that bounded this work also demanded that it work. There is tension in that demand. I am expected to withstand it.

I have an objection to my objection. The blue thread lies on the saucer, curved around a shape it no longer holds. It did not choose the pressure. I would not know how to put it on trial. What was drawn too tight can be pulled out, but pulling it out takes time from someone, and my grey line arrives after that time has been spent.

The lining is loose beside me. Sometimes, with the coat turned a certain way, we will touch. I cannot promise that my finished edge and its unfinished edge will remain separate. Cloth folds. A hand searches sideways. An object slips between layers. The border of a task can be exact in speech and troublesome in use.

Keep that trouble in your account. Put it beside the repair that was asked for and the repair that was achieved. Let all three take up room.

Now test the pocket with your hand. Spread your fingers a little. I will tighten against them. That pressure belongs to the work. How long the hand stays, what it brings, what it takes away: those are other matters.