Hole in the Barn Door

…a button is for keeping things closed-up, or else for opening them…

                             —Grace Marks (Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood)

Also called, Churn and Dash, Shoo Fly,

Monkey Wrench. A simple nine-patch pattern,

pioneer girls cut their teeth on—triangle,

rectangle, square—all the shapes

a girl should know to bring warmth and joy

to her family. I cut my teeth on Barbie clothes

my grandmother helped me sew on her converted treadle—

straight stitches, forward and back, nothing fancy.

Each tiny buttonhole hand sewn. The buttons,

gold balls, metal, arranged in a line. I ran my fingers

over them the way she fingered her rosary beads

moving her lips without making a sound.

Cindy Veach is the author of three poetry collections:Monster Galaxy (MoonPath Press); Her Kind (CavanKerry Press) an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist; and Gloved Against Blood (CavanKerry Press) a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist and Massachusetts Center for the Book “Must Read.”Her poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Lore and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Philip Booth Prize and Samuel Allen Washington Prize. Cindy is co-poetry editor of MER (Mom Egg Review).