Lossless
By: Oliver Cox
Our partnership creates a garment, made
Without the need to cut whole cloth, no cause
To section off material or flaws;
Its threads will change together while they fade.
Knit us a caring cloak and watch it grow,
Expand in unknown space, defining as it goes.
Make a plane from thread, poetry from prose,
On which to write our story, row by row.
I see your ball of wool, and I can't tell
What shape you will create, instead I trust
And love the choices that we make; they spell
A path that fits, is beautiful and just.
A lossless fate, created as you knit,
Chaos screams, but friendship conquers it.
Oliver Cox is a British novelist and musician, currently working in the USA for a marketing agency. He was born in Caversham, UK in 1992 — with his family moved to rural Mid Wales in 1999. Oliver has been working as a freelance writer and writing poetry and novels since his year out before studying English at the University of Liverpool. Oliver married entrepreneur and designer Winona Quigley in August 2018. They currently live together in Brooklyn, where Oliver participates in New York's dynamic musical community. Winona and Oliver are also working on a joint musical and photography project, which we hope to release in a year.
"My poem addresses the concept of losslessness, that is, of a process or activity that is usually associated with the loss of information / material, being done, conversely, in a way that keeps everything intact. My wife, Winona, for whom I wrote the poem, is an advocate of "zero-waste" clothing design, knitting is one example. I use this as a metaphor for our relationship, specifically to address the idea that in order to be in a relationship, couples must compromise on their goals / ideals. Rather, I say that compromise as part of a loving relationship is a value in and of itself, it is not a loss. A relationship is an act of creation, taking the abstract, undefined space of the future and making it real. I was pondering these thoughts because Winona is fiercely independent, and I didn't want her (or me, for that matter) to consider any aspect of our relationship a loss. I wrote the poem for her for Valentine's Day 2019."