Identified by the marks of her own fingerprints,

 

the places where she had gone, and where she had left,

 

blurred into one and became all the same.

 

The rumpled sheets of the flowery bedspread are cold

 

and crinkled into a crescent where she once lay

 

her small frame, her body embraced by daisies

 

as white as the snow on her front doorstep in the middle of winter.

 

The swing still creaks fondly in the backyard, a puddle of

 

dirty rainwater catching the reflection of the sun’s rays momentarily

 

as the clouds drift onwards, forgetting to take their shadows with them.

 

Swirling winds wrap around the lone pairs of socks still hanging out to dry,

 

weaving through the woolen fabric as smoothly as the needle in a mother’s soft hands.

 

There are still days when I cannot separate past from present,

 

when I look back and see a flicker of myself leaving wet footprints on the

 

gray concrete leading up to the pillars of the front porch

 

or sense the unraveling of my sweater as I pass under the maple,

 

the thin threads dangling from the bare branches

 

and leaving behind a path back home.