I remember shopping for this top with my mom. It was called a poet blouse. I knew it would be perfect for her. It had been sewn for her by name.

She loved poetry before I knew what words were. She recited them to me. Read them to me. Maybe it was the rhythm, the flow. I couldn’t have understood what the words meant — not yet — but I could feel them, as they gently tumbled from her mouth, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a tear. I followed both. Trusting the path.

When I was able to understand the words, I began to write my own. And most were for her. I rolled them out in new order. Changing nouns to verbs as needed — (“your heart pillows to mine, and I am home.”) The freedom was delicious. Filling. Energizing. Each word lifted us from the ordinary to the extraordinary. A language we traveled. Together.

I wore that poet blouse yesterday. I could feel it all the way to my toes. I, we, rode the tumbling poem of yesterday, with a smile, with a tear, together.