Self Portrait with Quilt and Synesthesia

by Meghan Sterling

Tell me again why we came here,

this land of pine and water with its scent

of undone stitching, all of us busy

with our children and gardens.  My kale

did nicely this year.  July was wet and stormy,

the tomatoes drowned.  I woke up this morning

and the sunrise looked like a bowl of scrambled eggs.

I wade through shadows with my fingers

to find the words that will comfort September’s

rainfall.  I write so that I can contain myself

in a cup of tea, small as a thimble on the tip

of a mouse’s tongue.  Tell me why every morning

aches like the color lilac, why sleep is racked

with dreams of earth’s bright end.  Tell me why

my daughter shivers like a dandelion against

a blowing mouth, why my daughter in the night

sings out all her generation’s acquired terror.

Tell me again why I inherited the bad stomach,

why I see my father blurred in the mirror before

I’ve put on the makeup that hides the resemblance.

Tell me why fog tastes like raspberries, the trees

laughing in the clouds with their little hidden

leaves, the morning fallen down and sleeping.

Tell me how my story isn’t the same story

lived by the men before me, wading through

the dark into more dark, now that I’ve lost the thread.