Folding
If you want to keep the memory,
you have to fold it wet, the woman,
a stranger, told me in my dream.
She held her dripping laundry
piece by piece against her breast;
she crisped the curves
of a damp wedding dress
into sharp corners, a compact
square to salt away.
A WWII portrait – my father’s? –
stared out from the front
of a sodden army shirt; she pinned
the arms behind the olive back, cranked
the silk-screened face in half,
tucked the shirt onto a shelf.
She folded with such precision,
I knew I could never duplicate it.
The air smelled like the changing
room at the community pool.
I worried about mold.
Don’t things mold
if you put them away
wet? I asked, but she just laughed.
It keeps the memories fresh,
she said, and snapped a sopping
baby bonnet in the air,
flinging water all over my face.
– gayle brandeis