Her Hemisphere (Amber Flora Thomas)

Your sleeves tremble as you shake
the last rivulets of rinse water from a pan.
A thread weaves under your arm
and follows my sister's screams out, out

and dangles there. Good cotton,
none of that hand-me-down shift,
shimmying with a history of weak notes.
The vein of a zipper retches along its cut,

trails her tenor down, down and ends
at the skirt's hem. Her screams fit
your elbows, so here a crease and here
an indentation dismissed. The dress finds

so much to praise--a sermon of my father
to cinch the waist. Count the threads:
there is no mismanagement of flesh here!
Stretch cotton draws approval across your shoulders

and gives. None of these seams blunder off
in a zigzag. Purple flowers roam into your apron ties,
like lizard eyes. You reach for a towel
and out they go, blinking.

Please don't ever turn around.