My name is Podrigotuma and I'm told that apparently I resemble in character my great great grandfather.

Obviously a man I never met. The story in the family about him is that he did like to talk

and he enjoyed wandering and people have said to me that I am somehow some kind of reflection

of him a few generations later and I mean lots of people like to talk and lots of people like to

wonder so I don't know that there's anything particular in it but I've chosen to take the DNA

of it and the connection of it and to let it be true for me me and this connection with a man

who's probably born in 1840 somehow not only in DNA but also in character where echoes of

each other in personality and I find companionship with him even though I know I never met him.

Blouse by Nithikasa

Mother had a blouse it was mowed with puff sleeves roped shoulders with pads under

the collar Peter Pan the style of the forties they stitched devils ivy's on the breasts like

purple hearts dark sequined patterns on a plain torso sewn to please lines swamping as if the

maker had something to say or may have failed the first twists seemed so overrun them.

The blouse belonged to my grandmother who inherited it at 16 from her mother

because it did not survive I bought myself one mow puff sleeves the collar Peter Pan like a rifle

bird at dance I altered it v-necked glammed my scaffolded consciousness imitating the hands

that came before the domes and the cuffs too were my own doing I caught myself strutting my mother's

walk first day I had it on it runs in the family women with pretty faces warm smiles curls on

their circuits the puppies and their skins worn elegantly at night I doffed the blouse naked myself

in the mirror when I shy counting the pleats on my skirt a man waiting on my bed his bust like

that of my grandfather's his tongue poetic like my father's before mother had me crystal pieces

passed on the starlights on my ears

...