On the anniversary of the day she went missing

I sit in the yellow 3:36pm kitchen reflected in the glass, I run rampant with memory and desire. The
room is empty, the room is full. Debussy’s ‘The Snow is Dancing’ soaks through the wallpaper, a piano
awake in the attic. The walls dissolve like the fog of steam over the kettle, wet with nostalgia, a sticky
honeycomb glow of street lamps in January. The feeling of my mother’s hand in my hair. The world is
tainted with her. The lamp hums, the mug exhales between this cold set of hands. God should have
heard her calling, those streets silent like the balding fields hushed on the cusp of winter.

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Rowan Tate is a creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.