Asia's Hands

We'll make peach butter when you come to visit.
                                     —letter from Asia Freeman

She sews a slow Sunday afternoon,
guiding it past the foot of her old Singer,
pressing the pedal. Fabric gathers in folds
behind the machine, intricate as a day,
all patterns and small ascensions.

One night she took in a blouse for me,
and I learned how gentle and definite
the will to change can be—how things come to us
in a certain form, and how, with strong hands,
we try to make them our own.

Holding a paintbrush, sculpting bits of clay
into flowers to adorn the neck of an old green bottle,
resting, palms up, in her lap, Asia's hands
catch something solid in the air and make
and make and make.

Poems by Lisa Sitkin: