The Passed Note Issue 6 February 2018 | Page 32

Artifacts

I’ve ransacked the attic to find a time and place I fit in

better than today because I’m tired of seeing nothing that

faintly resembles me.

There are magazines with women who have my kinky red hair

and like to wear their lipstick dark and definite, like the

exclamation point of a sentence.

And a suitcase full of gingham skirts that sway the way

I do when I dance in front of the mirror to soft guitar and a

woman’s voice that sounds like rain.

Costume jewelry missing stones but saying more in the empty

spaces, a backwards braille, telling the world that once

there was something special there.