Knitters

by David James Ross

For five minutes
They stood together intently reading
The Fair Isle jumper in the window,
Learning up between them
The narrative twists and
Turns of its moorit saga.

For the rest of the day
It lay in secret ciphers
In the archives of their heads.

For quarter of an hour,
Back at home, they plotted together
With conspiratorial pencil
And squared paper,

And in two weeks
Of wool-weaving and needle-nattering,
They had conjured up
Its vivid identical twin.