Blankets, a Childhood
The deep-olive
wool one
we called the
Army blanket
because it was.
I loved its heft,
its official
smell. Not mine,
it knew cots
& hard ground.
What it knew
best: the mystery
of my brother
& his crew cut,
absent boy who
said so little.
The tan one with
two stripes
at the top,
coral & turquoise,
we called the
Indian blanket.
Dream catcher,
exotic & pilled.
Always doubled,
folded in half
longways, saying
itself twice.
Rolled up, a
sister’s pillow
when the day
went wrong.
My favorite had
no name. Faded
red-and-black-checkered
cotton
smelling of
lotion & salt air.
Sunbather, limp
& napless—
the one whose
bed was sand.
The sea’s dull
handkerchief
we gripped the
corners of at dusk
& shook, hard, in the devil wind.