Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Alison Townsend
Years after my mother died, my aunt sent me
her wedding gown, still stored in its satin-ribboned,
Wanamaker’s box, labeled “Mary’s Dress” with peacock
blue ink in my grandmother’s spiky hand.
I remember how I knelt before the box that evening,
one candle burning, making a ritual of the opening,
scared of what might fly out, afraid the dress
(which I’d seen only in pictures) might have crumbled
into dust, all its pleats and ruffles dissolving.
And how surprised I was to find it,
intact in its tissue shroud, virginal
(though I’m not sure she was), along
with the veil she’d made herself, rosettes
of lace stitched across its gauzy surface,
and the white kid slippers (a size too small
for me), still stained with dirt—
from when she’d walked across the garden
at my grandmother’s farm to where my father
waited, her face radiant, exactly the way
a bride’s is supposed to be, neither of them
guessing what lay ahead, cancer already drowsing
in her breast, and further down, like hidden treasure,
three eggs that would become her children.
Crab Orchard Review ◆ 191