Needle Through Leather

he could pull a needle through leather,
heal a shoe seam; reattach a purse strap

when I see a hole now, I think
he could fix that

with his ocular magnifier
squeezed into his eye socket

what’s one more wrinkle
when his skin has already been given

over to the Greek sun,
the open field?

his fingertips were blunt, tough
wasp squashed under his thumb

but when I see him back at the kitchen table
winding the wire coil necklace

first fashioned by him
before the war and the loss and the flight

with its many consequent whorls,
I want to wear it, at least for a while
before it cracks again

see his wizened hands are sure,
as they twist and curl the wire thread,
double back over turns they’ve made

and he returns it to me, whole again