Ruby Cook

I wore white to her funeral

for Martha Silano

because she loved me in white
and she was never too sad about death.
She wanted us to be doves
in the backyard, gleaning
her memory, picking through elderberry
seeds, cracking their hard shells,
letting them fall and finding
her remnants in all of it.
I lifted an orchid petal from the lawn,
felt between pointer and thumb
the softness of her forearm,
dipped in lemongrass and olive oil.
I saw the outline of her lips
on the rim of my glass,
when two blue wings fluttered,
then turned swiftly into my father,
who took on her gentleness in the after.
She said to the stars, take me there
so I wore white to her funeral
in case she might see me as one,
might picture me as some brief
explanation to the pumping heart.
She’d watch my long skirt flip
as I twirled inward to the chest,
letting silent tears finally hatch
like mayflies rising off the river,
blooming into late-spring air.

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Ruby Cook is a literature and visual art student at Bennington College. Her work has appeared in Expat Press and Terrain.org.