I remember the smell and feel
of that pink bathrobe better than
the faces of friends I’ve lost. Pilled
polyester. The seams scratched, plastic
fishing line sewn in melted after
decades in a gas dryer.
I wanted it willed to me.
I can see it sitting, propped in
the recliner in memories where I cannot
even see my mother.
Brink pink.
She called it her Pink Panther bathrobe,
swinging the tie like a tail. Thick cuffs
pushed back to show thick forearms,
her hands stronger than any man’s
I’d ever seen.
It must have been plush once, to have
been pulled off the rack.
I can see the matted sleeves more clearly
than my son’s infant face.
She wore it every morning and every night.
If I was sick or sad, I could wear it, a pink
aura to prove I mattered. It dragged
the floor until I was nine.
She only wore it sober.
She was as gentle as the robe hoped
it could be while she wore it. She sang
songs and read books and did silly
voices. She made soup for fevers
and warmed milk for sleepless nights.
She held me and rocked me, my face
buried in pink, smells of cheap cigarettes
and mint chewing gum and Obsession.
I wanted it willed to me.
When it hung in the closet, the dice
were rolled. Our trailer became the setting
for violent mad libs come to life,
fueled by Natural Light. Whole years
it hung in the dark. No stories. No songs
except to tell me “don’t cry out loud.”
No soup or warm milk or comfort.
I bore witness to the absence of that robe.
We sat silent and apart and mourned
my mother, each of us, robe and child,
hoping she would wake and walk
into the kitchen, glowing, mantled in pink,
a beacon of calm and safety and love.
