I hate it when people say
“It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop”
because you should never hear a pin drop
when the roar of the motor,
foot on the pedal,
bobbin punctured cotton,
drowns out the sound.
You should never hear a pin drop.
Who drops a pin
for the sake of measuring sound?
Pins should only be airborne
when the thread weaves itself,
embroidered crimson chest panels,
jerks the needle up and down. Flying.
That is when a pin hits the ground.
But just as the woman
at the Y likes to remind me,
I am no seamstress.
I am no tailor.
Just a wrinkled old lady
who’s mean with a thimble and needle.
So let me be clear—
hearing aids or not
I never hear a pin drop.
And when my baby
brought home her own baby,
she asked me to make the whiny thing
a little white cloak
adorned in Chantilly lace
for the “baptism of the century.”
And like a good Nana,
I hunched over the car seat
to get a good look
at the little doughy blob.
It only took two seconds
before its flailing stubby arms
sent the pin pressed
between my lips
flying across the room.
With both of us bleeding,
I turned to my baby
and assured her that
lace would only make
the kid look paler.