Matilda's Dress
Stretched naked on the rumpled spread
he fists the pillows - waves of carefully
hand-embroidered roses lapping against his skin, against
the length of him.Beyond the window, on a line strung between two grey trunks
I notice a dress - black, hung alone,
pinned by one limp hung-over sleeve
and a fan of skirt, caught to one side in a curtsy.'My aunt,' he says in English from the bed, '- Matilda.
She is forty, never married.
She cares for my mother - there is no story.'Her dress swells in the rising wind; from here it looks dry.
San Blas 72