خلخال

In the late, late hours of the night, those which belong to a woman who blessed my days with sun light, I remember that tiny ribbon. And just like a single thread that comes loose and with one gentle tug unravels into a much longer and seemingly never ending existence, this ribbon has come loose in my mind as the night was counting down the hours to leave as I lay curled under the light, floral quilt mommie gave me. I do not know where it is now. I have no recollection of losing it. Yet its loss is a certainty I have no proof against. Like this game I like playing, trailing a shred of thought to know what it was born of, I follow the ribbon backwards. I tiptoe in the darkness around my memories to try to remember where I might have left it. But it is here that the game is different. I don't need to know where it came from. The memory of her palms – which make miracles out of paper and glue – holding out my little book which she had just bathed in love, tied up in t