The Quilted Word

Slow time now breeds still the stilted hand

and all the voice can carry through the day

so many strings and chords and asymmetric

signs, the road is full of hazard, been and gone

the need to say for this emphatic sheet, tatters

still remain, a sort of patchwork

eulogy has taken shape between the hands,

the breast, the possibilities exist in rounds

and squares, angled and textured memory

resides in place, the lacquered walls licked

clean and cracked with yesterday’s emotion

chalk white, caked thick in thin places

able bodied hand, the hand, the hand still

pulls and pushes needle thread in tow.

Len Shneyder