Читать книгу A Hundred Silences - Gabeba Baderoon - Страница 7

4. Fit

Fit

Dim light of the tailor shop, small bell calling

him from the back, shelves with their bottles

of buttons, a thimble, dust and thread

of cuttings on the floor.

To make a coat, search

in all the fabric shops from Wynberg

to Town for cotton, linen, wool.

He licks a forefinger to turn a new page

in the small black book with red binding

and, holding a thick stub of pencil, measures

the arm from collarbone to wrist, elbow bent.

At the waist, two fingers go

on the inside of the measuring tape

to allow a give of flesh between

the measure and the fit.

He translates the length and hardness

of the bones, the breath and change

of the human body

into the flat numbers of the pattern.

*

My father loved to see

my mother wear the clothes he made for her.

At the fitting, holding pins at the side

of his mouth, he lifts the coat from its hanger,

seams pressed but not yet finished

with buttons and hem.

She puts it on, turning

the cloth from two dimensions into three.

Always this taking shape around the body,

this translation again of breath into fit.

To watch my mother as she hurried

out of the house on her way to work, the swish

of her dress in the slipstream of her walk,

was to discover a rhythm too fine to see

in the steps themselves. To grasp it fully,

you had to watch her coat as she left.