The great flowery dress of my seventh-grade teacher, cotton or rayon, pillowcase for her vast mothering bosom, scented with the perfume of the unmarried, stretched over hips that made arms of the lap I sat on— you were the handkerchief of my remorse just once, you with your bright roses and tulips, spidery paths of vines and fluted leaves, all the smothering penance that nearly consoled me, until above my sobs I heard hers, and in her arms the crushing force…… More »