Quilt

Here is a geography
with no place
for distance, a love

that seams complete
in the scheme of purpose,
a declaration

of dependence between
mother and daughter,
embedded in cloth,

sensed from birth,
a secret belonging
to wholeness

whose order joins
each pattern
through the intricate

piecework of needle
and thread, a quiet grit
of resistance

passed down by design
to save the world
inside it.

Published in the 2012-12-21 issue: 
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Barry Sternlieb’s work has appeared in publications including Poetry, the Sewanee Review, the Southern Review, and New England Review. His chapbook Winter Crows won the 2008 Codhill Press Poetry Prize.

Also by this author
Two Poems | Beach Totem, Analemma

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