Names Project
For Judith McDonnell

Yet another panel
to piece, child's quilt
for a woman grown
childlike, her body shrunken,
brain swollen back
to that time before speech.

Beyond speech ourselves
we take up our needles
as the doctor finally did
detaching I.V.'s.

As frontier women used to
in consoling huddles
working through
patterns passed down for centuries.

Her dying was long
labor—thrush, fever, cough,
cold, old diseases returning
in their deadly guise.

So we stitch
for a strong woman stripped
down to spirit.

This crazy quilt, giving form
to what has no form
but by craft, our common
thread, acceptance

which is only a stage of grief.