The Museum of Wardrobe

I have little recollection of how I came to be in possession of the black silk blouse, only that I didn’t want to purchase it. A distressed phone call, a foreign city, the weaving of the taxi as I sat in the backseat, my windswept hair rising like smoke. That day, in that blouse, I looked on as someone I loved very much — someone I love still — was lowered into the ground, leaving me with nothing of him except for the shirt I’d hurriedly purchased for this unexpected occasion.

Today, the blouse sits neatly folded in my top drawer, a bittersweet reminder of what I have loved and what I have lost. In another