Family Stories by Jane Yolen

My father's stories
were tightly held.
He was stingy
with the past,
coining what
he could not remember,
parceling out the rest
with the cautious philanthropy
of a miser.
His lips moved
with the effort.

My mother's stories
waterfalled out
in little spurts
between apologies.
They were all praises,
Sunday school tales,
the morals
spoken in italics
so that we could not miss the points.
But we would not miss
the tellings.

Our old nurse Annie
had no tales
of her own,
only the ones
she had heard
and she had heard before.
She was not born
but made whole
to tell us stories.
Her past was one
filled with gods
and mothers-of-gods
and the little imp tales
that we loved the best.

My brother and I
are pieced together
like crazy quilts.
We keep warm
on winter evenings
with the weight
of all those tales.
But we never tell them
to one another.
We can't recall them,
only the ones that begin
"Do you remember when . . .
Do you remember?"