The Claim

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
By Jane Wilson Joyce I dream an attic where I find a trunk of clothes so old they look to me like costumes, a trunk of clothes that fit faces whose names I wear bound up in my bones. Tissue paper, wrinkled soft as an old woman's cheek, sighs as I lift the dresses out and hold each by its shoulders like a friend I'm glad to see. I dig down through the layers, scenting rooms I've never seen, the potpourri of moments unremarked as motes of dust in a sunbeam in the attic. Little things tucked in the folds fall out—yellowed gloves, a paper fan, a brooch of gold and pearl shaped like a woman's hand reaching from a stiff lace cuff as if to take a rose. As dusk drops its petals and the dusty skylight dims, I step into the empty trunk and sink down in its dark. I fold my knees and elbows up, fit my spine against its wall. The brass-bound lid clicks shut. The trunk becomes a boat. Out on the rocking tide, I know the muffled call of gulls, the murmuring tang of salt. When I reach land, when hands reaching from their stiff lace cuffs lift the lid and I look up to see those whose names 1 wear, I'll say, I'm hungry. I have no home. I want to hear my story. 3 ...

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: