Meanwhile

Here is a photo of my second son.
He has the same angled ears

as my uncle.
No one has ever said so.

Cousins, aunts, all look at him long and hard
and then don’t say so.

My sister cuts tiny fabric squares,
sews them back together in a quilt.

Her son, younger than mine,
thinks this is crazy. He points

to a blue square, says
“my soccer shirt from last year.”

He smiles as he points,
looking just like his father—

everybody says so. My son wonders
why I don’t quilt, don’t slice

and rearrange ordinary days
we won’t recall into mosaics

that we will. The opposite
of remember, I once read,

is dismember. I am silenced
by the unspoken family pledge:

until we have a body
we cannot say uncle.

Meanwhile, my son picks at his ear,
thinks he looks like no one.