Quilt

A quiet lyric turns memory and injury into a small meditation on restraint, power, and grace.

The poem moves in clipped statements that feel bruised but not chaotic. Its world includes hurt, vanished laughter, work, escape, and a final effort toward calm, so the closing `as a flower` lands as a deliberate softening rather than a decorative image.

The title names the method: a quilt pieced from worn-out scraps, and the poem is stitched the same way from disconnected remnants - 'one stone on the lake', 'one jumped ship, one logging truck', 'The good laughter' that 'vanished'. Underneath the patchwork runs a current of guilt and restraint, the speaker wondering 'why I did not / Make more hurt' before the regret loosens into something gentler. The close - 'Easy now, quiet, / as a flower' - is the binding seam, choosing softness over force just after the poem reaches 'power'.