- Vol. 09
- Chapter 01
Image by Frederick Cayley Robinson
Unfolding Linens
I find myself
comforting the child
I was,
easing the ‘empty’
that came with
fatherless days and nights
in a wood frame house
with a mother strong
in survival,
yet weak with fear,
weary after battling
illnesses and the unexpected.
I find myself
watching the future
while keeping a close hand on
yesterdays that are
silent as a cat
yet present as
an apron of duty
and cap of humble
expectations.
Unfolding Linens
I find myself
unfolding linens of
lingering memories
imprinted with patterns
of long-ago pleasures
and plagues.
In the ecru shadows of
memory,
I am stirring
a vessel as vaporous
as time itself,
as fluid as song and as
thick as trespasses that
never heal.
I write this and
see my selves,
as I sit in a future
that my past never
trusted, a present
where
I find myself.