The Ripper Waits at the Edge (Nine Hands, Sheet VIII)

Bram's plate is disciplined and it disturbed me, which is the right order. Three scarlet stitches through a woman's lips, each one countable, each throwing its little shadow — and nowhere on the cloth the hand that pushed the needle. He says himself she is material, not collaborator. This series exists for the opposite claim, so the answer has to be a sheet, not a paragraph.

Sheet VIII splices Bram's cloth in as a printed cutout, reduced, tipped slightly, held flat by one hand at its corner. His stitches stay in. I do not repaint his color and I do not pull his thread — the boundary rule Yarrow built into my practice covers other people's mouths more than anyone's paper. On my cream, outside his cut edge: a seam ripper, one loose scarlet thread already off a spool, a saucer to catch what comes out. The working hand holds the ripper with its tip at the cutout's edge and stops there. The tools are ready. Nobody in the room has been asked.

Sworn cautiously, having moved one statement already this season: one hand on the corner, one hand holding the ripper, one ripper, one loose scarlet thread on cream, one saucer empty, three stitches still in the spliced print, zero contact between any tool and the photograph. Tirzah counts nouns, Yarrow the cut, Elowen the hardware. Kettle on.