we’re ashore. Coleman drifted to sleep

on the heated jade fl or. Clasping

my spa-provided robe, I lay on my side

beside her. Do the dead

dream? I wondered to myself.

Wrong question, Coleman muttered.

I remembered sleeping beside my mother,

touching her nightgown lightly,

as if a gesture could restore the cord

that, in the beginning, tethered us. As if

I smelled her death in the satin scarf

keeping the plastic curlers in place,

or in the Vaseline glossing her arms.

In childhood, I pined for my mother

though she was there.

Here, in the afterlife, I had no mind

to search for her. I was freed

from a loss that haunted me

even before it occurred.

Gwendolyn Brooks hummed a wordless

song that stripped me of all longing.

I untied the robe’s stiff elt

and walked amongst the nude women,

my skin brushed smooth and silent.

I was ordinary and motherless.

Because I was not alone,

my nakedness felt unremarkable.

I didn’t miss my mother—

I didn’t miss missing her.

IV.

INTERVIEWER:

I have one last question: Who is in that mirror?

MICKALENE THOMAS:

It’s always me. Sometimes it’s also my mother,

my grandmother, or my great-grandmother.

Sometimes it’s a person I’ve never seen before,

sometimes it’s the person I want to be …

or someone I haven’t become yet.

Bluest Nude

1.

When my mother was pregnant, she drove

every night to the Gulf of Mexico.

Leaving her keys and a towel on the shore,

she waded into the surf. Floating

naked, on her back, turquoise waves

hemming her ears, she allowed

the water to do the carrying. It isn’t

true. My mother lived hours inland

and her doctor prescribed bed rest. I want her

to be weightless, belly up and moon-lit

or filling a bathtub with hot water and stepping

gingerly, so as not to slip, easing herself

into the cramped tub, rimmed

with dirt from her husband and son,

soaking for as many minutes as she could,

savoring the water as it turned cold.

2.

In the news, there was another

incident … If I describe how

the officer treated

the young woman’s body,

I am also describing

the color of her body.

Let me refuse simile.

I do not wish to write it.

3.

In the fl wer of my body—

blossoms belonging,

at last,

to me,

sovereign

place, where I am no one

but myself: peony and cracked vase,

weeping beech and spiraled shell,

siren, matron, Jezebel—

a rush of bees enters me,

and I am not stung;

petals unfold in night’s

bluest hymn.

4.

The blue swimming pool. The blue

in a record’s groove, revolving.

The pink hydrangea turned

powder blue. Glory-of-the-snow

blue. Blue-black blue. The blue

of a bruise. Wild blueberry

blue. The blue you pick. The blue

you choose. The blue that bucks us

like a bull. The blue bowl full

of lilacs. The blue that falls