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Poem
by Sherine Elise Gilmour



If my mother

Were a dress
she'd be black
with ruby and turquoise
  hummingbirds
over her breasts flitting
(tiny bursts).

Like deep-sea eels
the thread would slither out of
its stitches.

Sunday morning
late for
church
   one shoe lost,
  her father kicked her
  down the hallway
(pulled strings
and carpet burns).

Dirt sifts through the thin fabric of the dress

This dress that is my mother
is barely a dress
and can
ravel off as easily as
the skin of a doe.

If
I were a dress
also:
yellow
with light green and dark green
both of us
with hummingbirds
what my stepfather called,
the bitch and the bitch's bitch daughter.