Star QuiltThese are notes to lightning in my bedroom.A star forged from linen thread and patches.Purple, yellow, red like diamond suckers, childrenof the star gleam on sweaty nights. The quilt unfoldsagainst sheets, moving, warm clouds of Chinook.It covers my cuts, my red birch clusters under pine.Under it your mouth begins a legend, and wide as the plain, I hope Wisconsin marshespromise your caress. The candle locksus in forest smells, your cheek tatteredby shadow. Sweetened by wings, my mothlike heartflies nightly among geraniums.We know of land that looks lonely, but isn't, of beef with hides of velveteen, of sorrow, an eddy in blood.Star quilt, sewn from dawn light by fingersof flint, take away those touchesmeant for noisier skins, annoint us with grass and twilight air, so we may embrace, two bitter rootspushing back into the dust.