I walked into the room
where she shrieked and tore at the strings
of her blue gown
said, it’s pulling my heart out,
said, can’t you see the blood?
Her gaze looks past it all
into another life when she cooked
at dawn, drew water from wells
and smiled at dirty children.
One second split wide the omphalos,
what the future will not hold,
mated to the hole in her solar
plexus where her son lived until
he couldn’t, until he shot through
her poverty
with the wave of a hand.
I have learned to say of course
though her wild eyes cannot find
my fingers walking towards hers,
towards what she tries
to undo.
She will die later that day
but in the moment I see only the frayed strings
of her blue gown, her grasp
frantic to form a vowel
that might encompass feeling too much.
Lady in a blue gown
Thomasin LaMay teaches women’s studies, music, and works in the library at Goucher College, Baltimore. She has a Ph.D in music history/women’s performance practice from the University of Michigan, has published in academic journals, and edited Musical Voices of Early Modern Women: many-headed melodies. She spends as much time as she can at the Ivy Bookshop, imagining herself an unfinished poem. She also tutors high school kids in southwest Baltimore. She’s been writing poetry since she was a kid, and lives in Baltimore city with at least 200 books, 55 plants, a dog, 3 cats, some strays who visit, and amazing neighbors.