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When I Begin to Sew, Cara Nonna, I Write
When I begin – boundaries and the heaviness of burlap,
rough-textured jute edges that never match, though I trim
with pinking shears, take classes, buy proper tools.
Is this the way Mother felt when I was six years old, trying
to sew me a dress from a pattern Auntie Mary gave her,
my arms too long, my eyes the wrong color?
We live in a picture window on St. Francis Street
with a bird bath, lemon trees, purple pansies in boxes.
On Saturdays we cross El Camino by Piggly Wiggly
to Middlefield S&W Cannery where you work,
turn on McCarther (formerly Beresford before the war).
Here you raise a daughter and a son, keep a garden, a cow and chickens.
I look for you at the car window, brother in the backseat
after ice cream at Frosty's – you never drive. Or, maybe, it's winter,
and we're dunking Saltines in Ovaltine after Mother May I;
Nonno watches fights on TV: Graziano, Marciano, Lancaster as the Swede—
or we hide again in the tool shed, but our father leads us out
—Scat, you! Keep out! Someday, a story for you— but not now.
That day I remember running home from school— leaves of autumn
on one side of the street, the other side devoid of reason,
the Piedmontesse dialect of the ancestors playing
in the foreground – gestures that elevate the family work
history – Butte Montana copper mines— to the empty space
of the black walnut, the gutter tarnish, towels drying on the line:
two red two linen white two cotton green
work shirts trousers work shirts trousers
socks socks socks —who took them in?
And the family, three houses down, after the funeral— will miss
hearing you sing opera arias to morning, day still young, grandfather
not yet one-month retired, cleaning guns —if I could
just go back to the little house off Middlefield,
made sacred, reverberating, now, with love.
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Denise Calvetti Michaels writes poetry and memoirs. Her poems have been published in Rock Salt Plum Review, Crosscurrents,
Paterson Literary Review, Wetlands Review, Literary Mama, Voices in Wartime, Poets Against the Way, and King County Poetry
on Buses. Her work is included in the following anthologies: In Praise of Farmland, Whit Press 2003, Tree Walk,
Cambium Press 2004 & 2005, and Mute Note Earthward, Washington Poetry Association 2005. In 2004, Denise's poems received
the Crosscurrents Prize from the Washington Community and Technical College Humanities Association. Her memoir, Polenta,
is included in The Milk of Almonds, Italian American Woman on Food and Culture, Feminist Press, 2002. In 2001 Denise
and colleagues at King County Child Care Program received the Dr. Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award for their work to
address institutionalized racism.
New work is forthcoming online and in Wild Embers Press to showcase the 3:15 Writing Experiment; City Work Press, and
a collection of poetry written by care-givers of family members with Alzheimer's, edited by Holly Hughes and Tess Gallagher.
Mother to three daughters and grandmother, to Holden, Calder and Maizie, Denise also teaches Psychology, Human Relations,
and Civic Engagement through Service at Cascadia Community College, Bothell, WA. She received a BA in English from University
of South Florida and MA in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College. Her MA thesis, Growth of a Child Care Provider, explores
the practice of journal writing for reflection and growth.
Malìa Collective
The Feminist Press
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