The Art of Mending

She keeps the broken cup behind the flour, its hairline crack a river seen from sky, the gold she pressed into the seam still humming like a held note after the choir leaves.

Some nights the needle finds her hands again, threading lamplight through the worn knee of a coat no one will wear. The dark outside leans in, patient as a cat, while she draws the small torn edges back toward each other, breath by breath.

Nothing is thrown away that once held warmth— the kettle's dent, the chair with one short leg she shims with folded letters. Every flaw becomes a place where her two hands have spoken.

What is a house but everything we refuse to let the world finish breaking? She turns off the lamp. The mended things go on, unwitnessed, quietly insisting they are not yet done.