One Man's Turned Leaf

He used to think his actions were justified.

But then he came to his senses.

A bigoted, washed-up, wrinkly man

felt bad about his slurs,

of which he said he only used a tad.

When his daughter strolled in one day, he said to himself,

"Oh, it's a colored woman."

Sitting down with his daughter's partner,

he at first stand offish, 

began to alleviate her worries 

when he saw they were cut from the same cloth.

A cloth rampant with memories

that don't want to be remembered.

A cloth that doesn't know what it's like

for someone to take care of them.

A cloth that labored through trauma

and got over it by thoughtlessly staring 

at the ripples in its coffee.

A cloth that refused to be idle.

Only then did it register in his twig brain,

whether with shared experiences or not. 

All cloths make a winsome quilt.