Rosa’s Winter, and: Sisters Mourning

Rosa’s Winter

I.

Montgomery is blindto the rock faultthat slips deep belowher jailhouse drone.With strong winds whirlingoverhead, she slow dancesin her daring,careening in a waltzthrough lazy mint julep days.Her buses make black cloudsas they rolldown her fissured roads,drowning the jinglesof caroling bellsand dimes tricklingfare machines.

II.

In no-man’s-land,Rosa sews a quiltto warm her winter nights.She cuts the buckling patches,spreads themacross her hardwood floor,then threads a patternof a young preacherfanning hot coals, stirringflames high as torch-lit crosses.His cadence soundsthe beat of weary blues—first a hush, a hum,then foot-stomping thunder,a swirling twisterof colored discontent.

Sisters Mourning

That year, the old sisters wore black in every season,emptying hope chests like a roof-tearing twister—so much to keep, so little to pass on. They must have sensedfear flashing in their uteruses, and wondered

what locust larvae lay dormant beneath the goldenrod,boring their tender limbs, reminding themof limpid skies, how bound they were to things living.Some days they gathered to celebrate the family—

Sundays in the sun, young lovers with nestsfull of babies, old lovers with memories cradledin their brows. Circled beneath a canopy of oaks,they boiled blue crabs and crawfish in an open flame.

They told their stories with songs and black-and-whitephotographs, between shuffled cards and dots countedon small ivory stones. Now, four hand fans later,the sisters speak of fallen branches. They take refuge

in beveled mirrors, in quiet times with questionsdangling in a slipknot. From their necks hanghand-knitted scarves and the albatrossesof pain not forgiven, salutations written but not sent.

Still, they wait to see the patterns quilted for the springbazaar, the evergreens blooming in their winters.Through the lives of their great grandchildren unborn,they wait, silent about their steep climbs and falls.