Blood Prism

Something of My Mother’s

20 Something of My Mother’s I’ve never worn a dress to the best of my knowledge, cloth with a bouquet. I don’t know what it’s like wearing something so infused. Half a conversation, maybe this one, in which I try again to have an I, imagine someone there where you must be, reading over your shoulder as well. But I’ve spent a lot of time with flowers, noted little pinks that fade to lavender. I’ve tracked leafshape back into its name and quiver: the family of asters, little stars with dust so golden I have eaten it. Nonetheless, how I got this print of hers I can’t recall, sorted from the things that blurred inside the smoke of grief and hurry: this pattern, floral, convoluted, brash. Count the seconds: every twenty-six, a wave in any ocean sips or overwhelms the shore. Wet clockwork. That pulse, white-capped, her letters and her sifted jewelry—all things going up, dissolved like air. This clothing. This one dress in my closet, hanging, as it hung in hers, fading and delinquent, even many years beyond the day when it last fit her well. ...