Her Perfume was Light Blue, Dolce & Gabbana
My father says into the phone, I’m going to bed again alone. What has his mind eclipsed? Sun-downing early? “Who would be with you, Dad?” I hold my breath. Mom, he says. He means my mother. I’m relieved—it wasn’t some stranger or his late-in life wife, now estranged. She’s beyond us, behind us, 17 years. The thought of her—an elixir. As the night sky blues, I tap my wrist, to summon the heart notes of her perfume—bamboo, jasmine and white rose.
In our dream band, on willow flute:
Gail Goepfert, associate editor at RHINO Poetry, is a Midwest poet whose work often reflects her love of image and photography. Publications include a chapbook and three books, the latest—Self-Portrait with Thorns (2021). She collaborated on a chapbook with Patrice Boyer Claeys, This Hard Business of Living (2021), published by Seven Kitchens Press, and on two photoverse books, Honey from the Sun (2020) and Earth Cafeteria (2023), featuring Claeys’s centos about fruits and vegetables and Goepfert’s photography.
Ran Off With the Star Bassoon 