“QUILT WORK AND POP MUSIC” by Diane Kendig

QUILT WORK AND POP MUSIC

after the Quilt National ’21 Exhibit

Those stitched branches sing to me,

“I’ll be there,” by The Four Tops, 

their harmonizing refrain, “Reach out,

Reach owwww-ut.” So sixties, a decade

as contentious as now, maybe more decadent,

or maybe we’re just used to it. 

I can’t heal Paul or Kate, don’t know yet

if we’re facing cancer, a stroke, 

or another ten years of health. We’re up

against the edge of a quilt and the arms

on it push back, reach out. The pink one

reaches up. Maceo’s grief kept us 

in brambles for four years, but something

lifts him up this week, lifts us up and out.

Keening for Xenia, distanced from her,

once as near as a daughter, shunned by her,

I stayed pissed till her sister was arrested

for speaking against Ortega. Seven months

imprisoned with seventeen others, unseen,

I reach out and Xenia emails me, “Maybe

we can talk this weekend.” With a love

that can see us through. Damn old 

pop tunes keep springing up. I still live by them. 

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Diane Kendig’s sixth poetry collection is Woman with a Fan: On María Blanchard (Shanti Arts 2021). She has won awards from the Ohio Arts Council, NEH, and Fulbright Foundation. A drummer since age 10, she ran a university creative writing program and a prison workshop before retiring to her childhood home in Canton where she curates, “Read + Write” for the Cuyahoga County Public Library. Find her at dianekendig.com.