Matrilineal

My grandmother was a villainess
of mathematical and pedagogical proportions
of farmhouse fights
wild Appaloosa horses
and hay loft chigger bites.
Whole coolers of marbled meat
frozen in white paper –
bovine branches of olives
in the trunk as my family escaped prematurely,
Dad’s foot heavy on the gas pedal

I weighed less than the smallest weights at the gym at first
then often tried to be smaller as I grew
squinting in the sunshine
soundlessly reading
or embroidering leaves and vines on pillowcases
performing good-girl-ness for decades
until I just couldn’t do it anymore
and began to stitch my own pattern,
gathering twigs and thread, building a nest

My own mother is a wounded swift
unable to take full flight
or heal her broken wing
There are nonstop doings in her days –
yet when she is calmly perching
on the sewing machine chair
she sings her grandmother’s stitching song
with lips spreading into a smile
hemming polka dot curtains
for me – her divorcee daughter in the city
our wings mending enough to imagine more

She and I wrap ourselves in homemade quilts
that familial fingers crafted, created
my eyes painfully parched, numb and thirsting
as we swallow pretzel-topped Jello
balancing soggy paper plates on our knees
the yellow-wallpapered room overheats in the sun,
and distant storm clouds threaten to burst
after the matriarchal malefactor,
my grandmother,
reluctantly remembered
in a country church
is buried deep under Missouri dirt.