Honorable Mention – 2023 Beverly Hopkins Contest for High School Students

Quilts

by MEG HANDLEY
Nerinx Hall High School

When it gets cold, I wear the wares of past
Generations. My heavy shoulders hold
The weight of old, uneven stitches cast.
Woven in, the stories and songs are folds
Of fabric faded with each cold season.
Mom cannot sew, but Nana taught me how
To mend and bend their lives for a reason.
Her old fingers moved with red lips that vowed
To fix the holes. Holes that history slips through.
Now my frozen hands tie knots on squares of
Every shade and era. If they knew,
If only they knew. Eve’s children with love
For those to come. Here, in winter I don
Their lives, keeping warm, and never alone.