by Cindy Veach

At twenty-one he gets a Freedom Quilt.
She gets to make thirteen quilts for her dowry
but will never marry
if she sews hearts on a quilt.

A dowry is no guarantee.
If she takes the last stitch
or sews hearts on a quilt
or doesn’t finish a quilt

or puts in the last stitch
or breaks a needle on her wedding quilt
or doesn’t finish a quilt
or quilts the thirteenth quilt

or breaks a needle on her wedding quilt
or quilts the top before she’s engaged
or quilts the thirteenth quilt
or breaks a thread

or quilts the top before she’s engaged
or gives him a Wandering Foot quilt
or breaks a thread
or breaks a vined border

he’ll never settle down
and she’ll be an old maid
a broken border of vines
and misfortune.

She'll be an old maid,
never to marry.
He'll have the fortune
to have a Freedom Quilt.





The poem was inspired by a lecture by Lisa Erlandson as reported in The Gainesville Daily Register by Heather Pilkington, February 29, 2012. https://www.gainesvilleregister.com/community/quilting-myths-busted/article_0193c469-705b-53e1-a99c-4e94ef4ddedd.html

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Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press), a 2022 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist, and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press) a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a Massachusetts Center for the Book Must Read. Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Recipient of the Philip Booth Poetry Prize and Samuel Allen Washington Prize, she is poetry co-editor of MER.

by Cindy Veach

You make me think of pewter, sticky on the inside
thrift shop pitchers—all those years of accumulated

gunk that no sponge or bottle brush can reach.
You make me think of heavy sow-belly skies,

100% humidity—the weighty weight of it all.
Grey, you are the antithesis of bougainvillea,

cheery saccharine packets, gyrating disco
balls. You are a stinking hot breeze

rifling the old neighborhood. You are wilting
breasts, senile angiomas, vaginitis, osteoporosis.

Oh little bitty grey moth plastered to the grey door frame
who thought yourself invisible—I see you

and raise you three parts 506 to one part 505
to equal parts peroxide.

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Cindy Veach’s most recent book is Her Kind (CavanKerry Press, 2021). She is also the author of Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a ‘Must Read’ by The Massachusetts Center for the Book, and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, The Journal, Salamander, and SWWIM Every Day, among others. She is the recipient of the Philip Booth Poetry Prize and the Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of MER. See www.cindyveach.com.

by Cindy Veach

When is leaving justified?
One-part eggshell to two-parts love?
Two-parts eggshell to one-part love?

None of the above?
My head is full of noise.
My head is a hung jury.

My head is a congregation
seated on hard wood benches
while outside the Chinese maple

is on fire and worth a sidelong glance.
Who can resist? The urge,
irresistible—

I cast my eyes knowing
I could not look back.
Those leaves escaping

the tree, sparking the air
made me think of lightning bugs
when I hadn’t thought

of lightning bugs
since Bloomington
since the rental on Bender Road.

I raced my sisters
across that dark yard.
I wanted to capture

all the light.
It wasn’t a secret.
There were people

who drove down our road at night
to dump unwanted puppies
from car windows.

How could they do that?
And yet.
How could I?

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Cindy Veach is the author of Her Kind (CavanKerry Press, forthcoming 2021), Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press), named a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and a ‘Must Read’ by The Massachusetts Center for the Book, and the chapbook, Innocents (Nixes Mate). Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Phillip Booth Poetry Prize and the Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of Mom Egg Review. www.cindyveach.com