Searching for Patterns

 

I’ve been here before,

not this store, but some store

on a day with made-to-order rain,

where brightly colored merchandise blurred before my eyes,

calling memories to mind,

drawing upon the slimmest associations.

 

Today I follow my mother through the fabric store

dazzled by the quilts, bright as stained glass windows

brilliant textile mosaics

in contrast to the gray world outside

where the drab colors run together

like a muddy watercolor.

 

This quilt called Le Jardin de Provence

Is perfectly landscaped In brilliant yellows,

strewn with orange flowers and the green of tender leaves.

I trace its scalloped edges with my eyes

and imagine myself vanishing to walk along that undulating path

among the glowing flowers.

 

The world doesn’t make this much sense.

I struggle to find the patterns,

but all I see are images, mostly random.

 

You

standing at the doorway to my bedroom,

where for once I’d made my bed,

the quilt my mother made smoothed across the mattress,

a lattice-work of dark green over pale yellow,

the small pink and orange batik squares flaring like flowers

climbing a trellis.

 

We were studying in the living room and you asked

to see the rest of the apartment

standing in the doorway to my bedroom

you paused

 and looked at where I slept

and sometimes dreamed of you

 

Do you ever dream of me?

I want to haunt you.

I want you to long for me.

But if you do

there is no sign,

only your strange silence.

And mine.

While everyone else congratulates you

and your dear friend says nothing.

 

I want you to take me in your arms

and wrap that quilt around me

and let me cry and cry.

Tell me that you know you’ve hurt me,

that you love me,

but this was a promise you couldn’t break.

And just once

we can say all the things

we can never say.

Author's Note

I'm not happy with the ending. I think I should do something different or cut it out entirely.

Reviews

[Eternal Poet]

Editing always takes away-so usually the first draft is what is real!! Beautiful poetry!

[Poeticpiers]

Beautifully presented in delightfully descriptive poetic prose. Nothin wrong with the ending to my way of thinking.It leaves the reader to daw their own conclusion