Appetite for Mulberries
Our guide, Hassan, hurried us off the
Bus into the factory
to initiate our tour
“Turkish Silk Carpets
from Start to Finish.”
Hung on hallway walls,
photographs showed
tightly wound, doll-sized
tennis balls, resting on
mulberry leaves. Hassan
explained, “Those are
silkworm larvae cocoons.
They are happy to
stay and spin on their
favorite food,
mulberry leaves.”
In the next room
large photos
displayed their fate:
cocoons being dipped
into boiling water,
hands discarding those
boiled larvae once alive within,
slim fingers unraveling cocoons
into skeins of silk thread.
In the next room
behind glass windows
we observed real women
spinning, dying silk,
weaving threads into intricate designs.
At our last stop
towers of silk rugs
rose up from polished wood floors.
Salespeople circled like moths.
“Once only for the Pasha, now for you,”
Hassan whispered into his mic.
But all I could see was worms, larvae
whose last days were spent
feasting on their favored food
in ignorance of what was to come,
blinded to their fate by
their great appetite for mulberries.
- © Joan Leotta 2022
Joan Leotta, of Calabash, NC, plays with words on page and stage. In addition to her ten published books, her varied writings have appeared or are forthcoming, in Ekphrastic Review, Pinesong,, Brass Bell, Verse Visual, anti-heroin chic, Silver Birch, Ovunquesiamo, Verse Virtual, Poetry in Plain Sight, and others. She is a 2021 Pushcart nominee and received Best of Micro Fiction in 2021. In early 2022, she was named a runner up in the Frost Foundation Poetry Competition. Her chapbook, Feathers to Stone , which includes the poem, Sycamore Roots, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2022 from Main Street Rag. She performs tales featuring food, family, nature, and strong women.
I love it!
ReplyDelete