they said, as she flung her story
out on the bed, ragged flower garden
of her own making, the reds and pinks
gone first, disintegrated. Raw patches
of the quilt’s underlayers showing
through, open like wounds, like something
abraded. What was meant to keep her warm
frayed or fraying or all the way gone—
though they still could see on the thin
backing of muslin the tiny stitches she’d worked
to try and hold it all together. At the foot,
razored rips where his toenails had cut.
On the other end, stitches pulled loose where he’d
clutch a handful of quilt then turn hard
away. And in-between, stains she couldn’t
or wouldn’t explain, the wear and tear
of what happens in a bed. Oh, honey.
Whether to keep it, is what she was asking.
Honey,
over each little hexagon, so sweet
the calicos—cherries and bluebirds,
boys in short pants, Scottie dogs,
little Dutch girls washing, ironing,
baking, mending. Honey for the tiny
trail of stitches left like breadcrumbs
inside each patch, for the cedar chest
that held it while she’d waited, for all
she’d hoped. For the garden path
of green patches between blossoms
that let her step from one
piece to the next, but stopped dead
at the edge of the bed. Oh, honey,
let it go. They said it again
and again, voices rising and falling
over the beauty and the ruin, soft
weight of their words warming
her cold story and the chill
morning waiting outside
the quilt. Their words falling
like sun on a clothesline,
sun on blossoms, falling and filling
the bare, tattered comb
of her quilt with a golden
food made from the flowers
themselves, sweet and hurtless
and free. Honey.