Guest Poem by Marjory Woodfield

Marjory Woodfield is from Christchurch, New Zealand. She’s been widely published in literary journals, including Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems, Landfall, takahē, The Pomegranate London, Orbis, Atrium, and in anthologies such as Pale Fire (Frogmore Press) Best Small Fictions (Sonder Press) and Fuego (World Congress of Poets Literary Journal). Most recently, she won the New Zealand Robert Burns Poetry Prize, The New Zealand Society of Authors Heritage Poetry Prize, and was second in the inaugural Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry. This poem is from Acumen 111.

She Sews the Stars
after a quilt by Harriet Powers

Harriet takes strips of calico,
old dungarees. Stitches stories
to warm her children.

Job prays for his enemies. Moses lifts up the serpent
in the wilderness. A dark day in May. The stars fall.
In the Garden of Eden, God’s all seeing eye, merciful hand.
He creates two beasts of every kind. Ostriches.
Polka dot giraffes. Elephants green as key lime.
On Cold Thursday a man is frozen at his jug of liquor.
Christ crucified, the sun goes into darkness.

At Georgia Cotton Fair they look for the largest potatoes,
the tallest cotton stalk, biggest watermelon,
best display of pickles and preserves. Best seeds.

In a corner, a quilt. Harriet
sitting beside it.