Caroline Mar – Poetry

Blazer

Rana Plaza Factory collapse, April 24, 2013

It was the place that made me. It was the place
where I came stitched and sewn, seam
to perfect seam. I am precisely

what I was made to be. I hang straight, the sheen
of my tuxedo-edged lapel shining
in the slightest dusty light of your closed closet.

I remember the hands that flew me quick and sure
up one side, around the cuff, then off
to another pair of hands, swift, moth-like

as the flutter of my striped lining was laid
within me. Blue and white stripes run
my well-lined sleeves, under the buttons punched on

so fast I couldn’t feel the puncture. They must
have felt such pain. Can you imagine it?
You know that whirring of the spools. The sound

of both our childhoods. Every gorgeous
cast-off blouse, irregular, snuck home
in your grandfather’s delicate hands.

You have his fingers. It was
the place that made me. Now I am here,
in your home-place, and they who threaded

my every inch are ground to rocky dust.
The heavy hum and rumble stopped.
Let me out of this dark place. Put me on,

my mourning color. What,
did you think you would not feel it?

Caroline Mei-Lin Mar was born and raised in San Francisco (and one nearby suburb which shall remain unnamed), and after flirtations with the East Coast is safely settled back in her hometown with her wife and their pet bunny, Mochi. Carrie is a mixed-race Chinese-Irish femme who was raised to cause trouble radical lefty parents. She currently works as a secondary Special Education teacher and owes great gratitude to her students and colleagues for what they teach her every day. A recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and an alumna of the Voices at VONA workshop, Carrie is working on her first book, Special Education.