A red Mickey Mouse shirt

wrinkled, in the back of my closet

when I was six

smells like cotton candy

you gave me, mother

when you rubbed my sticky shirt with soft, licked thumbs

twelve sizes too small

a wrinkle in the fabric of now

 

I am clothed in collared shirts and cologne

to cover the smell of rain

on nights I remember your large, smooth hands

wiping away the showers

 

you are old thread

and weeping into the stomach of worn cloth

that I have left with you

in the lining of this house

 

you cry into a dry porcelain tub

like wet wringing fabric

where you bathed me in bubbles

and wait at the front door

like clothes hung to dry

for tiny steps

as I step into shirts twelve sizes too big

and you wonder

will you hear that small pitter patter

again, as you bury your face

into cotton

and wash it

until it fades.