The Quilt

We wore our bones and I’m not so good enough’s

like a Halloween costume,

yet we were chocolate, migration and embroidery

stirred with an oar.

I do not remember story time

in a bed with a sunken middle, or

hearing the cold bells of Trojanesque horses

jingling past our lawn.

Plodding…trampling snow…going somewhere.

“And just how could you forget that?”

my brother is desperate to know.

I tell him I no longer hear the volcanic arguments

of our next door neighbors, which spilled

over their windows and into our laps

as taped Jeopardy episodes came to be school on a Saturday.

My nose recalls leather−torn green leather.

“With the white meat poking through,” I say.

The leather covering Granddaddy’s ’82 Fleetwood’s seats.

That tight bear-hug the sunshine back sweat it’s ok to spill applesauce

if we don’t make it back know that I love you the passenger side window

got smashed once by a thief

but no one was harmed type of leather.

Zooming…eating roads…plaza adventures to get donuts.

The pale winter my young father died

is missing puzzle pieces.

The sensation of snowballs in a bare hand

lasts longer than handshakes.

Throwing…kissing tall maples…playing in an ice dome.

My brother shakes me by the shoulder.

It’s about Little Dale, who wasn’t so small, all over again.

“I bet you remember that time!” he points to a vacant lot nearby.

“Dale shoved me. I tripped over a snow bank,

and next thing, I’m battling a real grizzly,” I say.

The bear’s mom called out from a porch

and it rumbled off, leaving me to the faint

rat-ta-tat-tat taps

from the window behind.

Granny did not preach.

She pulled no ears.

Nor stared into a boy’s concussed soul.

By the time our wet boots fell sideways on the mat

mugs of cocoa waited,

the steam almost spelling our names.

Shaved corn,

Sliced okra,

Diced onions,

Quartered tomatoes−

all on the countertop,

the tendons and ligaments of her popular soup.

“I still feel it,” I say,

shallow ridges left from marshmallows scalding our tongues.

And then he grips my shoulder yet again.

This time some telepathic denouement.

Yes, the quilts.

The ones from cut square pieces

adjoining birth with reinvention.

The thick covers Granny’s granny made.

The slices of genealogy draped over our couch

able to be worn whenever,

no grand reason required.

The husky capes which held codes

we’d figure out in due time.

The patterns with novellas stitched within.

Fugitives…runaways…sprinting.

My favorite:

the scribbled dark mountain range

giving way to yellow and pink light touching its peak.

The one she wrapped me in and said,

“Tell me all about it.”

Rat-ta-tat-tat…

Rat-ta-tat-tat…

Rat-ta-tat-tat…

I still have keys,

but I like the sound on the door.

It’s grandparent’s day, a newly-minted market grab.

We haven’t even made it all the way up the driveway.

Me and my brother.