Wintering by Kevin Young
I am no longer ashamed
how for weeks, after, I wanted
to be dead - not to die,
mind you, or do
myself in - but to be there
already, walking amongst
all those I'd lost, to join
the throng singing,
if that's what there is -
or the nothing, the gnawing -
So be it. I wished
to be warm - & worn -
like the quilt my grandmother
must have made, one side
a patchwork of color -
blues, green like the underside
of a leaf - the other
an old pattern of the dolls
of the world, never cut out
but sewn whole - if the world
were Scotsmen & sailors
in traditional uniforms.
Mourning, I've learned, is just
a moment, many,
grief the long betrothal
beyond. Grief what
we wed, ringing us -
heirloom brought
from my father's hot house -
the quilt heavy tonight
at the foot of my marriage bed,
its weight months of needling
& thread. Each straightish,
pale, uneven stitch
like the white hairs I earned
all that hollowed year - pull one
& ten more will come,
wearing white, to its funeral -
each a mourner, a winter,
gathering ash at my temple. Art by Liu Chenyang
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