its not much to hang on to but it only takes a thread to keep me alive.

a thin slightly frayed red thread –

real red
nature’s red

crushed from seeds or flowers, pounded into a steadfast dye by mother’s hands – also

red – from the dying and from the living.

woven with tired loving fingers
smelling faintly of blood and strongly of sweat
into a moist red braid of promises

real thread –

the kind that ties secure round a heart as well as a finger

a reminder of what you have to do after you leave, if you never come back

The same thread that loops through a jade pendant
a keepsake of mother’s mother
now nestling against your memory like a green egg unhatched
holding in its glowing inside the waves of China’s seas at home
and a tear even bigger than the waves

The same thread that goes round your childish neck
holding a carefully folded triangle of safety and love, divinely guaranteed
protection from the evil, the unlucky, the unfriendly, the unknown
resting between your collarbones like a kiss slipped from your forehead

the red thread that stretches from heart to head to home
to her

mother