After Opening the Sewing Table Drawer

Clouded visions of blackberries danced

into the whir of mother’s blender.

My voice never cracked when I spoke

of my need to climb the cliff

where I’d once seen gulls

and where I remember

having seen crows

against a sky dotted with clouds

that I often wished I could stick

a needle through and sew together

like that string of dolls

I had created when I was younger.

Those dolls a blur in time;

memory that sometimes fails.