The silk I was washing
tore in my hands like wet paper,
myriad holes appearing
in what before was whole cloth,
my innocent fingers proving themselves deadly,
hapless

The oil from the orange you described
stayed on my fingers
and my lips,
its presence in thought
so immediate, so important

Ways of seeing things fall away,
suddenly proved unable
to hold truth in them,
new images tingle,
evocative, potent,
their scent suffusing everything.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 17, 2020