Summer 2020 Archive
Poetry
MAKING A TEE SHIRT QUILT FOR MY BLACK SONS
By Cynthia Robinson Young
1.
In step one you collect them one by one.
Beware; they tend to pile up rapidly.
You soon find out that one gives birth to many,
a ruler measuring your child’s growth.
Your memories are sweetly stored within them
like faded photographs with rips and frays.
Then one day you realize there are too many,
the closets and the drawers have overflowed.
The shirts, like years, have piled up way too quickly.
Your children have outgrown the ones they loved
Amassed like years your sons have quickly passed,
unaware that you’ve always been present,
not noticing the cotton of your touch.
2.
In order to not let your sons go too soon,
you must progress onto the second step:
You gather shirts, and now with scissors sharp,
then cutting off the excess, leave its heart.
You must be careful not to cut too close,
And when the squares are cut, square upon square,
You lay them out to see what goes with what.
You want to have a faultless fit together,
though faded, shrunken, stained, some very used.
None of the shirts can be considered perfect
but they are paired now, like your sons will be.
So sew the imperfections all together.
Don’t mourn cut shirts and broken promises
But know the “good ole days” are every day.
New tee shirts will replace the ones you’ve cut.
3.
The next step is the most important one.
A backing must be chosen to enfold
your sons with dreams of perfect parenthood,
a maternal nest of softness you create,
a womb where tags and stiff clothes don’t exist.
4.
Now, sandwich cotton batting in-between,
a buffer against the coarseness of this life,
then sew with equal stitches time together,
your fingers pock- marked from quilt needles pushing
through layers of years of thick-headedness,
and finish with a binding that you bless.
5.
At last the time has come! Release the quilt.
Release the days and hours that you’ve spent
and pray the seams can hold their lives together
And keep them from the harm the streets might bring,
the dangers from their Blackness, hovering.
By Cynthia Robinson Young
1.
In step one you collect them one by one.
Beware; they tend to pile up rapidly.
You soon find out that one gives birth to many,
a ruler measuring your child’s growth.
Your memories are sweetly stored within them
like faded photographs with rips and frays.
Then one day you realize there are too many,
the closets and the drawers have overflowed.
The shirts, like years, have piled up way too quickly.
Your children have outgrown the ones they loved
Amassed like years your sons have quickly passed,
unaware that you’ve always been present,
not noticing the cotton of your touch.
2.
In order to not let your sons go too soon,
you must progress onto the second step:
You gather shirts, and now with scissors sharp,
then cutting off the excess, leave its heart.
You must be careful not to cut too close,
And when the squares are cut, square upon square,
You lay them out to see what goes with what.
You want to have a faultless fit together,
though faded, shrunken, stained, some very used.
None of the shirts can be considered perfect
but they are paired now, like your sons will be.
So sew the imperfections all together.
Don’t mourn cut shirts and broken promises
But know the “good ole days” are every day.
New tee shirts will replace the ones you’ve cut.
3.
The next step is the most important one.
A backing must be chosen to enfold
your sons with dreams of perfect parenthood,
a maternal nest of softness you create,
a womb where tags and stiff clothes don’t exist.
4.
Now, sandwich cotton batting in-between,
a buffer against the coarseness of this life,
then sew with equal stitches time together,
your fingers pock- marked from quilt needles pushing
through layers of years of thick-headedness,
and finish with a binding that you bless.
5.
At last the time has come! Release the quilt.
Release the days and hours that you’ve spent
and pray the seams can hold their lives together
And keep them from the harm the streets might bring,
the dangers from their Blackness, hovering.
