Excerpts


Black Dress
For my mother
By Irene Latham


Handmade with love
the label declared,

and still I placed
the dress in a garbage

bag, left it at the curb
for a truck to carry away.

Now your joints swell,
your sewing machine

stays covered, and I
have money for dresses
.
But I want them back,
those dresses I watched

you cut from satin sheets—
the black dress, out of style

now, but classic the way
black dresses are,

how we learn about love
too late.