{"id":110340,"date":"2022-06-25T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T17:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=110340"},"modified":"2022-06-26T12:55:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T16:55:58","slug":"the-creation-of-hope-hour-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/the-creation-of-hope-hour-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Melody on Wool (Hour 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a roommate once<\/p>\n

she had skin like caramel<\/p>\n

and she liked to tell us stories<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One day after dinner we asked why she’d rather sit on the pavement to knit<\/p>\n

while we drowned our sorrows in wine<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She smiled like the sun on a dark day<\/p>\n

her silver tooth twinkled like a star in the night sky<\/p>\n

and she told us why-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I was taught to hide my pain in knitted yarn<\/p>\n

go for bright colours to show happiness<\/p>\n

make melody on wool<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am half cast- that’s the Nigerian word for biracial<\/p>\n

I used to say I’m half of my mother, half of my father<\/p>\n

now I see myself as a knitted yarn<\/p>\n

made of loom and loop,<\/p>\n

full of each<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I embody two cultures, two skin tones<\/p>\n

I’m a confluence<\/p>\n

I make them meet<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

one grandmother pounds me yam every Christmas<\/p>\n

she teaches me to move my waist in the rhythm of the drums<\/p>\n

the other teaches me country songs<\/p>\n

she bought me a pony at sixteen<\/p>\n

taught me the art of knitting<\/p>\n

and named me sunflower”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

that night- we knit a sunflower handkerchief<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

now when I try to fill the space in my life<\/p>\n

I drop the wineglass for the knitting pin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a roommate once she had skin like caramel and she liked to tell us stories   One day after dinner we asked why she’d rather sit on the pavement to knit while we drowned our sorrows in wine   She smiled like the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,1136,441,5],"tags":[5092,5067,586],"class_list":["post-110340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts","tag-2022prompt5","tag-2022-hour-5","tag-hour-5-prompt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110340"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123370,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110340\/revisions\/123370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}