Heart Strings

By J. A. Totts

On rainy days,

my mother hums along

with old songs on the radio

and dances in the kitchen.

Sometimes I drum the beat

with wooden spoons on pots and pans,

louder than the thunder.

When I say we’ve had enough

of this humming-drumming-dancing,

she rummages in the “miracle” drawer

of matchbooks and broken crayons

and empty spools and a million miles

of string wrapped in a ball

as bumpy as planet Earth.

She cuts a length of twine

and knots the ends just so,

then begins the heart-strings of cat’s cradle,

her fingers singing soundless music.

I pluck the pattern with my fingertips

and slide the song from her hands

to mine. Sometimes we tangle

these webs of thread and air,

and our laughter is brighter

than the lightning.

Illustrated by Taia Morley