Poetry Week 2026 Runner-up

BY LEE-ANN SMITH

Copyright is held by the author.

Though I arrived here naked
a coat of many yarns and threads
has formed to my shape
a garment comprised of year-after-year
warp of choices, weft of adversaries
held by seams that expand
to hold the sum of me.

Your thread is one that shimmers
through the weave
like one from a best friend
strong as silk.

Your thread is the tie
that binds me through time
my direct line to the ones from behind:
my grandparents when fully prime
my mother as a girl, a bride
me, just arrived.

Someday
when your thread frays at the end
my coat will unravel in places
where the fabric used to be strong

strong like a Godmother’s love
and all the other things
I’ve never thought about being without.

***

Lee-Ann is a Canadian writer of many genres. An award-winning poet (most recently the 2025 winner of the national Golden Grassroots Chapbook Contest), her poetry has been included in several anthologies. She also creates”Poetry Art”: frameable artwork, each consisting of a photograph of the beauty she finds in her everyday world plus the poem sparked by this beauty. She is also the author of two non-fiction history books, and regularly publishes articles for the Historical Novel Society and Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton. See more here: https://leeanneckhardtsmith.com