It was a blue flower
What kind of flower?
A blue one
On her hand
On the top
It was colored in
It was tattooed on the ship
Came over from Lebanon to Canada
They had nothing to do
It was a blue flower
They tattooed it right onto the back
Who?
Of her hand
A blue flower
Just here
She points
Draws it with her finger
My grandma can’t hear very well
And I can see her hand
Just as her mother’s was
Olive and wrinkly
And bony
Fragmented conversations about hands
And flowers and tattoos
A blue flower on a bony hand
A good luck charm into a new life
Lillie Rice is a native Chicagoan and recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Her visual art has been published in the Sarah Lawrence Review. She continues to read and write poetry while living in New York City.
