Taking advantage of the moment of the muse,
I splay across the floor of my bedroom
stretching arms and bending limbs, wondering at
the postures translated into slender strength.
The crickets chirp outside, purely for the
enjoyment of listening to their own voice -
reminding me of summers spent with windows open
at the bottom of mountains in Pennsylvania.
At times we are handed gifts, and although they
often go unrecognized, we carry them with us
always, collected in our boxes of histories to prove where
we were and when, what our lives were like- it’s Proof!
I hold in my hands the necklace of gold flecks concealed in their
small glass orb, the greatest accessory for any hipster,
except that mine comes from a grandmother now passed.
Does it matter that my hands can guide her antiqued
sewing machine, the one she sewed her wedding dress on
at 16, sewed curtains, my mother’s childhood clothes.
Does it remember what her hands felt like,
bending over again to do the work of a determined woman.
I like to think all objects, all spaces, have a memory of
those who once made use of or inhabited them. Like how
I felt the souls, sad or lonely or alive, still existing in my apartment
when I moved in nine months ago. Aftereffect, afterglow, afterwhatever.
On evenings when I find you break the monotony of
repeated sunrise and sunset, pointing them out with a song
about dusk, I cannot help but hold my breath in anticipation;