Rebecca Valley, “Silk Scarves”

Silk Scarves

When I call this time you are in the Japan
where you are learning businessman
as an experiment in getting along.

Last month, in the Japan
where your mother fed you milk
with her thumbs, you reminded me
of budding, and delicately cycled clothes.

I am uncertain where these roses
come from. I watch for animals in the yard
because I haven’t been touched.

When I say these things to you, you are in
the Japan with silk scarves tied to tree limbs,
knotting and unknotting in the wind.

 

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Originally from St. Albans, Vermont, Rebecca Valley currently attends the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, as a student of comparative literature and history. Her poems have appeared recently in Poetry Quarterly, These Fragile Lilacs Poetry Journal, and Through the Gate. In her free time, she enjoys flea markets, podcasts, and baking bread.

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