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?"