And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than
notanonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the
flowerthey themselves never hoped to see. . . . Alice Walker
My Grandmother's Needlework
As I unwind the yarn
to begin another
winter shawl,
I look up
at the frayed
tip of the thread
in the sampler cloth
where my grandmother created
a barefoot girl
holding a bowl
of lemons,
her hair
braided back,
an oval of vines
around her,
tiny leaves
not quite closing
at the bottom
a space of
untatted white perhaps
a gate ajar
where her sadness
or dreams
escaped.
.
by Andrea Potos
from Adanna Literary Journal