perfume

i smelled her perfume last night.

in the hallway near the bathroom where we would sometimes meet.

me with my pink hair and nose rings. she would laugh sometimes, with her proper British laugh,

and say she was so glad she wasn't a modern girl. couldn't believe we would wear our underthings on the outside. my favorite thrift store slip giving her a kick in the pants.

i wonder if the smell of her perfume means that she is coming for my mom.
i wonder if she will come in her satin pajamas.
her back bent from age and bad posture.
her white puff of hair and tea stained teeth.
before she died you could say 'how you doing, grandma?'
and she would say
'i'm still breathing in and out' in her stubborn British lilt.

and she will come for my mom. i hope she does, with that talcum powder perfume wafting around the room. i'm remembering that she passed away in this house. smiling, talking to people we couldn't see. she was old, and she was just done. so glad to be going home.

and i see now that my mom needs midwives. that i will have to be one. my sisters too. that i will have to help her in to death the way she helped so many babies - even mine - into life. and that maybe my dad's mom will have to come from the other side. and that my mom's mom, my middle namesake, may have to come too. when my mom talks about dying she says she wants to go see her mama. and a part of me dies a little bit to hear her say it. i think her mama will smell like cigarette smoke and bourbon, as southern a woman as my dad's mom was a brit.

i am going to miss her forever. and i am already missing her now. she with her fucking unflappable faith. she with her maddening ability to pretend everything was always okay.
and so i ask my grandma to help, to bring that perfume back here. and the one i never met, the whiskey and cigarette one, who died when my mom is the age i am now, to please get her southern self here. maybe light the way with her burning embers. if there is a heaven, my mom is going.

it's just that her hands don't work anymore, and she needs someone to call the cab.

 my mama with her ash wednesday cross. jesus loves her.

Shrine

I am building a shrine.
There is no picture of this.
It is from pieces I can see in my mind.
An eye here. A smile. A piece of
silver from a heavy chest, always mysterious. And sacred. And real.

There is a poem, from a book I haven’t read with a line in it that says
"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken,"
and it is in this way that I build it. Weaving a memory palace.

 It is 3 am. I know because it is almost always 3 am, the times I actually get up out of bed. My eyes
have just popped open from what must have been, or should have been, sleep. I am wide awake.
There is a tingling in my body, a tension that runs from the top of my head to my toes, curling and
uncurling, and curling again.
I can hear their breathing, each one distinct. Tell where they are in the room or in the bed by the
weight of their breaths. These are my people. People I have made in one way or another. With love
or biology or both.
This keeps happening, these 3 am wakings. I have heard that it is at this time that the veil between
worlds is the thinnest, or that it is the time when your ancestors will try to speak to you or through
you (another book I haven’t read) and so I listen. Just close my eyes again and listen.

Nothing.

1shrine
noun \ˈshrīn, especially Southern ˈsrīn\
1
a : a case, box, or receptacle; especially : one in which sacred relics (as the bones of a saint) are deposited
b : a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or deity : sanctuary c : a niche containing a religious image
2
: a receptacle (as a tomb) for the dead
3
: a place or object hallowed by its associations

I need a picture for this. And here I am vainly searching the house as though one will turn up. Well,
there was one, but there was no shrine in it, at least by definition. But isn’t each picture a shrine,
just a little bit? I will use it, then. It has become a shrine already.

In this one my mama is there holding a puppy. Her little sister behind her grouchy as can be. Why
doesn’t she get to hold the puppy. My mom looks a little smug. Must be six years old. She is
wearing a naval cap. I wonder who gave it to her. If it somehow foreshadows her marrying a naval
officer. Just planted the seed.

Shinto ("Way of the Gods")
Though the term shrine as we know it originates from latin, shrines themselves can be found in various
forms throughout the world. Japan is notable for it’s vast numbers of Shinto shrines that can be seen in
many forms, from large, church-like shrines down to small household shrines known as kamidana (kami -神 "spiritual essence"commonly translated as god or spirit)
A Hokura is a miniature Shinto shrine either found on the precincts of a larger shrine and dedicated to
folk kami (spirits or ghosts), or on a street side, enshrining spirits not related to any large shrine. Dōsojin a type of minor kami protecting travelers from evil spirits, can for example be enshrined in a hokura.

I can see my mother’s life right now as a road. And maybe along that road are some sort of
important moments. Some things you could build a hokura to. Or at least one of those little
roadside crosses we see sometimes driving. And maybe that puppy is one of those moments.
Though I’ve never heard the story.
But I didn’t tell you that I can see her mother in the picture behind them too. She is just emerging
from the house behind them. All three plus the puppy at various points on the doorstep. She must
have been young. 27, 28 years old. She has a long face. I don’t think anyone of us inherited the long
face. We got Bill Taylors face, minus the nose. He must have been behind the camera. Back from a
long trip, or just leaving on one. He would go on one of those soon and never come back.

Maybe that’s why he bought the puppy.