Sillage

Sillage

By Grace Sleeman

Before bed, I spray my wrists with perfume because I heard

once that it makes your dreams sweeter. Sometimes I think maybe life

is just full of little heartbreaks, so in the mornings my pillows smell like

all the dreams I tried to sweeten, the heartbreaks I tried to postpone.

Watch me try to pin down joy like the wings of a moth. My

fingers are

dusted with tiny scales the color of charcoal;

they’re leaving smudges

under my eyes. I’m just trying to be kind to my sleeping self. Trying

to give her a soft landing.

When was the last time I took a shower without standing

under cold water at the end? When I was younger

I read somewhere that it made your hair shiny. I
can’t apologize

to the girl I was but I can cut up apples and brush my hair a

  hundred times before bed. Maybe if I lay out my clothes for the

next day she’ll forgive me; I’ll keep a bowl of lemons on the counter 

for the water I’ll take to bed. How do I take care of myself in a fishbowl?

The sun is going backwards, the clock is unwinding the day. Let’s go to the

laundromat together and smoke in the parking lot; I keep meaning to take out

    my bones and give them a good scrub, to squeeze all the

bad air out of my

lungs and hang them to dry on the laundry line.

The moth is on my cheek, the sheets are hanging on the line. 

After all this there will just be

the faint smell of perfume on my pillows, and a cool morning breeze through the window.