Where I Sit with Mother’s Memory
by Paulette Demers Turco

Reupholstered to my taste, it’s Mother’s still,
in perfect complement to her embroidered quilt
spread on the nearby queen-sized bed. My bookshelves there
will ever hold her cherished library–her short
sojourns with Emma, Jane Eyre, and Miss Marple’s clues
on relished sewing breaks before preparing dinner.

I’ve draped across the fluted back, her first-prize winner:
the final afghan she crocheted in subtle hues
before her macular disease would taint, distort
her palette. Book in hand, I sit upon a chair
in a corner, hear her voice her lessons, built
as they had been for her, the duties I should fill

at home till wed, for God, the Church, and family.
I left–for college. If she had, I might not be.



 

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