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Star Quilt: Poems

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Star Quilt

These are notes to lightning in my bedroom.

A star forged from linen thread and patches.

Purple, yellow, red like diamond suckers, children

of the star gleam on sweaty nights. The quilt unfolds

against sheets, moving, warm clouds of Chinook.

It covers my cuts, my red birch clusters under pine.

Under it your mouth begins a legend,

and wide as the plain, I hope Wisconsin marshes

promise your caress. The candle locks

us in forest smells, your cheek tattered

by shadow. Sweetened by wings, my mothlike heart

flies nightly among geraniums.

We know of land that looks lonely,

but isn't, of beef with hides of velveteen,

of sorrow, an eddy in blood.

Star quilt, sewn from dawn light by fingers

of flint, take away those touches

meant for noisier skins,

annoint us with grass and twilight air,

so we may embrace, two bitter roots

pushing back into the dust.