The Blue Raincoat

Theodora Ziolkowski

I am pushing the baby in the stroller; I am wearing a blue raincoat
that belonged to my aunt. Powder blue silk lining a gush
of blue-violet stars. The rain comes and goes; I miss her every day.
She always spoke with ease about death. Maybe
because she had a strong faith, putting stock in a divine force assuring
we were saved. Now I push the stroller up the hill
that girdles the park, playground bright beneath pewter sky.
The air smells like drowned flowers and the rain feels
like needles. I needle the stroller through the trees’ arch,
or the boughs needle me. Where, I wonder, does the line
between us end and begin? Now I am talking about
the baby, who I considered omitting from this poem.
But why would I be walking, wearing her raincoat,
if not to stretch my postpartum legs and lull him to sleep?
Maybe this is the part where I mention my regret, or the part
where I paint you a picture. Like how on the night
he was born, I could not help but remember the sunset blare of the sky,
my ear to the phone on the day I learned that she died.
Or maybe it is as simple as this: The sky darkened; the rain kept
falling. When I talk about her blue raincoat, the stroller, the baby,
my heart is a loud thing breaking from the weight of all I’ve wanted
and everything I’m still asking.

Theodora Ziolkowski is the author of the novella, On the Rocks (TRP: The University Press of SHSH), winner of a Next Generation Indie Book Award, and Ghostlit (TRP), a collection of poems. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Writer's Chronicle, Short Fiction (England), Prairie Schooner, The Normal School, Oxford Poetry (UK), and elsewhere. She lives in Kearney, Nebraska, where she teaches creative writing as an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She also serves on the faculty of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, MFA Program. Read more at theodoraziolkowski.com

Instagram: @theodora_ziolkowski