You’ve lived in this neighborhood long enough
to think in curves and stop searching for

corners, no longer muddled by roads
that don’t meet at right angles

—shepherd’s crooks dead-ending at water
or loops leading back to

the grade school you just passed.
In a car chase, you would know to screech

onto the side street that runs by the golf course
and out to the highway, while your pursuer

would have to pull over and study the map.
What was once a disorienting quagmire

has shaken out into a crazy quilt, the kind
everybody calls folk art because its order

can’t be explained by math—
blue rectangles, pink dots, green ticking

cut from old clothes and dish towels
and stitched willy-nilly into blankets

for the grandchildren of friends
to sleep under and drag to the tree house

and let the cats massage snags into till one day
an art critic declares them compelling.

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Sarah Carleton writes poetry, edits fiction, plays the banjo, and knits obsessively in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Tar River Poetry, Cider Press Review, ONE ART, Valparaiso Poetry Review, SWWIM Every Day, and New Ohio Review. Sarah’s poems have received nominations for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her first collection, Notes from the Girl Cave, was published in 2020 by Kelsay Books. More at: sarahcarleton.com.

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