a slow reading. a slow keeping.
Gems from a novel of girls named for flowers, sold across water, weeping into their own names. I collect the lines the way one collects pressed petals — for later. For when the day forgets what tenderness felt like.
**the dove** — the one so captivated that when birds glimpsed her they forgot to flap their wings and fell from the sky.
**petal** — the name a mother-in-law gave a girl she did not think worth an entire flower.
**pearl** — a pretty name she was allowed to keep.
**moon, remembering* — the palest ink is better than the best memory.*
we as merchandise.
every word this auntie says plants a stone in my belly.
—
I do not yet know what the whole book will teach me. I only know these lines refused to be scrolled past. They wanted to be held.
So — held.