The Knot My Hands Will Take With Them

My teacher tied the fourth knot once, and would not say it twice — what it means. She trusted breath before ink, said parchment forgets, but the wrist keeps what it means.

At the Ulev well a girl unties her own mistake and tries again — some knowledge asks to be failed three times before the rope will keep what it means.

Ksenia’s chalk goes soft by Rainmonth, and the doorframe wipes it clean; only the hand that walks back each spring, and mends again, still keeps what it means.

Osk cut hers with a blade instead, so damp could never take the mark — but a knife outlives the woman holding it, and stone does not keep what it means.

I mix a red no Register has entered, passed from wrist to wrist, never to ink — if my own hands stopped this evening, no Archive could recover what it means.

The vat behind my workshop keeps no ledger either — six days shut, then it speaks, in a tongue it teaches no one twice, to whoever waited long enough for what it means.

Let the Recension come asking after papers; I was never issued one to lose. I was given hands instead, and a hand does not need a clerk to say what it means.

Zara, they will keep the market standing long after they bury the maker — so choose the girl, and teach her wrong three times, before the color forgets what it means.