decorative · once held a ribbon
a small double overhand, tied in a cord, that holds nothing now but did once. the cord remembers the shape of the thing it bound: the crease where the ribbon sat is paler than the rest. nothing remarkable about the knot. everything about its place.
we tie one when we put a parcel away properly. it asks for a thimble to push it tight. when we untie it later we keep the knot anyway — re-tied in the same cord and put in the photograph box.
a girl i taught this to became an old woman who taught her grandchildren. her granddaughter taught me again, last year. the knot did not change.
— a small knot does most of the work memory does.
a knot for grief · true-lover's · ribbon · thimble · memory