Hemming

The interview is at half-past ten.

I’m trying to fix the cuff again.

The needle is small and my hands are too big.

I feel like a fool in this stiff, borrowed rig.

I prick my thumb and the red starts to spread.

A knot of messy, tangled thread

bunches up inside the grey wool.

I’m thirty years old and I’m shaking.

I can’t even pull a straight line

through a piece of fabric without making

a hole that wasn't there before.