Kurdish Blankets

Kurdish Blankets

Who could know
how cold this wool?
Dyed pistachio,
persimmon, pomegranate.
Meant for shoulders
moving through markets.
For bellies of babies
lying at picnics, heads
lifted to a sister’s face.
Mothers chewing dates
and hard bread.

Clipped on clotheslines
stretched window to window
across alleys and roofs.
Draped over sand-bricked
walls. Held high
against wind-pressed faces.
Daughters beat them clean
on doorsteps. Fold them
into cushions for guests
who eat olives on hot nights.

Bitter blankets.
Knotted by a woman’s hand.
A woman who pictured
the backs of horses
laden with apricots.
Thought of sandstorms,
a lover’s bed,
the kebob seller’s shade.
Even a grandmother’s knees
as she wheeled her chair
through Erbil at dusk.

But not this.
Not to wrap the murdered
and their murderer.
Never this blood,
these shards of glass.

by Kerry Dinneen