On Antiques Roadshow, a Quilt Might Bring $600 at Auction

Forty-two Dresden Plates, all overfilled
with feed-sack florals. Depression posies pressed 
into every tuck and seam. Sewn by a great aunt, 
about whom we’re told little. Maybe she stitched straight
as her man’s Yankee-stern mouth. Maybe he slept hot, 
easy weight of the patchwork always pitched back by morning. 
It was planting time, it was harvest, it was winter, so often
winter, and the fields had a blanket too — crusted snow
that nearly held human weight. It was winter and the flour 
came in cheery bags. The flour, dried beans, bonemeal
for the hens. Maybe she made this quilt and a dozen 
others, tucked in a trunk. Waste-not covers to circumvent 
want. The appraisal pleases, though it could have been higher.
If the quilt were unused. If its fabric were rarer. 
If farm grit didn’t filter into every soft thing.

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Abbie Kiefer (@heyAbbieK) is a poet from New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in Arts & Letters, The Cincinnati Review, The Common, Passages North, Poet Lore, and other places. She is on the staff of The Adroit Journal.