This is the Story of How We Begin to Remember

i never learned how to sew but

                                          if i could, i’d cut a fabric

of my elbows

                          & curls & tongue

germaniums

                                          from my mother’s wedding bouquet,

elderberry from my aunt’s garden,

                          the summer squash my sister

ate as a baby

                          i would work through

the night,

 under a denim sky

                          & tulle stars

i’d be my own lullabye,

                          lost in a southern wind

this is how we apologize:

hazel eyes & a quilt

of sincerity, my grandmother’s

unknowable cursive

my great-aunt says

                          every morning is an homage

to the one before, like the imprints

                          of fingernails left

on an orange peel

                          the scamper of a cottontail, blush

of plump grapefruit,

                          quiver of a new sun

i will slow down

                          drink the pulp,

refill the canisters of sugar

                          & cinnamon

this is how we forgive: fast-

strokes over the shallow waters

of Galveston, how hindsight rides

a languid ferris wheel to the top

& prays for an easy descent