In Knots by Margaret D. Stetz

Shetland
from Scotland
the dim shade
of mist on the Highlands
she imagined
(having never been there
and
this first trip to London
cost so much already)
she wanted to bring him back
something
not bespoke
yet able to speak
about her—
he would know from the box
that the shop
was across
from the British Museum
that she’d gone
to the British Museum
and stared at antiquities
(she couldn’t read Latin or Greek
but he did
when he quoted a phrase
and she asked him to translate
he laughed)
she could already picture him
looping this scarf
into an intricate figure
bound over and into itself
tight and closed
(That is the proper way
he’d instructed—
so many instructions
to follow in class
and in love)
yet she worried:
would he call it de trop
(he often spoke French
though she couldn’t)
his jacket had
“Harris Tweed” on its label
and was Scottish-on-Scottish forbidden?
(test after test
there was no hope
of passing)
You’re still just a kid
he had told her
the last time
in bed
he wrote lists
of museums to visit
she’d assembled her postcards
as proof
but her longing for what
didn’t
hang out of reach
didn’t
coil like a spring
always ready to smack
sent her wandering instead
into Regent Street
to enter a world there
of silk
fluttering, light
almost airborne
bold violet, jade green
rich magenta
fabric with hillsides in flower
or flaunting the feathers of peacocks
an offering of beauty
that required
no language, no teaching
just the dizzying prospect
of Liberty…