the blue dress

Twenty years of dust can make a grown 
man cry I realize as I open Mother's 
old chest. The dark interior hides the 
sheen of the blue dress but I smell her 
just the same. Mother.


Tears are nothing, Mother, 
but your scent is an eternity 
of memory unfurling 
in the sea. 


I run my fingers through the silken blue
to feel how twenty years of dust 
is a lifetime of trying to forget.


I let the dark fall on the dress again
for I know ghosts forgive easy when
there is no light. In the dark, the
blue and the dust do not make a sound.