Letter to Madeline

by DANAE YOUNGE

illustration by JESSE WHITE

Madeline, your dress’ lace bounced with floral, hovered over ash-less knees like tiny willows. Squatting, you placed peach pebbles as cobblestones, hung leaf curtains to tiny houses behind the swings while I made dirt mounds for the worms. Madeline, they should have named you Marigold — the way your voice curtsied on its stem, and rosy seam-ghosts ruffled petals into all your ironed clothes, tickled Mrs. Taylor’s nose. Pink bow ponytail with a unicorn ornament, your lunch triangles plucked from a square container and set on a linen pedestal.

Madeline, one day I tried to dye my hair with honey; not light red-yellow, henna powder or cinnamon, not strawberry tint, add a pinch of hibiscus, but gold — marigold — Madeline: 4 spoonfuls for every 1 of apple cider vinegar, and I thought maybe they would smell your sweetness on my scalp, feed it back so my mouth sugared over into your dulcet lips but Madeline, it only lightened to a brown.

Madeline, I remember how I named my doll after you — stroked her skin on my cheek like she was my newborn, drew her pigment as if it was chalk on wet stone and yet now I think of how envy inhabited mirrors, ricocheted against crowds of brimming cheeks reflecting through me. Now, I know one day I’ll surface on my child’s splattered raindrops, translucent in flight, then fill them up with hues when they hit the streets, my deep dark voice singing of thunder rumbles — lull them to sleep when their toes curl into my earth.

Madeline, you were giggling joyfully in the fun houses of my mind, your image rippling and melting into illusive curves.

But I am grown now. And I no longer chase you.

Danae Younge is a student at Occidental College and resident of North Carolina. Her chapbook Melanin Sun (−) Blind Spots was given the Florence Kahn Memorial Award by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Read more at danaeyounge.com.

Matthew Brown transformed a dilapidated Victorian home into a showcase for beautiful artifacts