the origin of me in knitting terms

preparations
pick your favorite yarn
mohair or cotton or silk or alpaca
spin fibers from atoms pulled from nothing
choose the pattern you planned
before time
and memorized as you sketched the
cobweb lace of my story
let us make her in our own image you say
and you begin

cast on
with two strands
use the cable cast-on method
in preparation for the double helix of dna
46 stitches for 46 chromosomes
no need for you to double check the count
just in case
you know how many stitches there are
it’s exactly how many you planned

row one
row one lays out the necessities of my first cell
the nucleus the ribosomes the mitochondria
knit purl knit purl
rib the first row for the rna
i now take the form of a handcrafted cell

cables
you deliberate over each row
slipping stitches onto the cable needle
the dna cables are two stitches in width
and four rows high before each twist
25,000 rows of cables total
one for each gene

lace
even as you work the lace
your hands don’t stumble over the needles
the lace matches the pattern you made
so long ago
you don’t count your stitches and realize
you’re missing one
you never make a mistake
slip-slip-knit and knit-two-together
yarn-over and make-one
you don’t have to go back and rip out your work
it’s perfect the way it is just like you planned it

cast off
you’ve planned the end too
when the time comes you cast-off
each of the 46 stitches
tie off the yarn and weave in the ends
set your finished product alongside the others
as your masterpiece