attic trunk · fifty-two years · last worn june 12
ivory satin, lace at the neck, hand-stitched buttons down the spine. it was folded into the trunk between two layers of tissue, in a hurry, the morning of the day after. it was not unfolded again.
the colour has gone the way of old paper. there are two small holes the moths put in the bodice. the lace has stiffened. the tissue, more than the dress, smells of the years.
no one in the family is small enough now. no one is the right name for it. it remains the size and shape of a body that was once briefly inside it.
field-note: the trunk is heavier than its contents. trunks always are.