Maybe I'm Still There
Your mother knit blankets for occasions. Your mother knit a blanket for Christmas. Your mother knit a blanket for Easter. At church on Sunday with your father without your mother the other worshippers called her a C&E. Your mother knit a blanket when your sister got married. She gifted the blanket to the inlaws as a dowry. Your mother knit a blanket when you graduated high school. She wrapped you in the blanket for your graduation photos. Your mother knit a blanket when her mother died. Your mother knit a blanket when her father died. Your mother knit a blanket for Christmas. Your mother knit a blanket when you moved away. Your mother knit a blanket when your nephew was born. There are photos of your nephew in his crib under the blanket. Your mother knit a blanket when she called you crying one night because she didn't know what to do and she knew your father was doing something funny on the side. You received the blanket in the mail a few weeks later. It arrived inside your building after you received three notes on your door threatening to return it to sender. Your mother knit a blanket for Easter. Your mother knit a blanket when your father wanted to become a catholic all of a sudden. She wrapped it around herself while he studied the Latin verses. Your mother knit a blanket when she decided to join the catholic faith as well, because wouldn't it be nice to have some faith again. Your mother knit a blanket after a year of catholic classes they were accepted into the church. She gave you this blanket when you came home for Christmas and agreed to go to mass. Your sister wouldn't go to mass but you liked the songs. You liked singing the songs in a great group of people. You liked wrapping yourself in the harmonies like so many blankets. Your mother knit blankets that became light like air or became hard like time. Later your mother knit blankets no more. Her blankets rest in your attic and in your basement in the new home. A few cover your furniture. Your mother knit blankets because without blankets she would disappear and only these blankets could warm us like the memory of her arms around our bodies.