Written piece
My Mother’s Scraps
Joanne C. Hillhouse
Antigua and Barbuda
About this piece
Sewing paraphernalia – which include threads – captures the matrifocal and “cut and contrive” quality of the Caribbean home, and a glimpse of working class Black Caribbean girlhood.
My mother made life with those scraps
And that old Singer sewing machine
Matching fashion that had people
Crowing,
“Such pretty girls!”
“Are they twins?”
And she took the scraps of those scraps
And made miniatures for the
Dolly with skin Black like mine
And my sister’s mini-she as well
Like she had a quartet
And so, when I think of Mammy at her best
I think of her
With that tape measure
Around her neck
And her foot pumping the
Pedal of that old Singer sewing machine