Sorting Socks by the light of a Flat Screen

by  Melissa Dickson

All the socks were black but patterned, subtle
intricate filigrees, braids, herringbones,

tone on tone variations, minute shifts
in feathered thread, pewter dots, silver stripes,

the occasional grid with a sole platinum
seam. That’s how I spent my day, suspending

my husband’s socks inches from my face, reading
each like a Gnostic text, mating them into pairs,

and heaving them through our bedroom’s
faltering light toward the open drawer.