The Shape of Forgetting (Prairie Dropseed)

Northern dropseed arched
like a spill of thread—
fragrant, sharp, not sweet.

Released without warning.
One day held firm—
the next, gone.

No fanfare.
No sound.
Only the seedheads,
dropped like ash
on an unmarked wind.

I found your work shirt that day,
where I’d left it.
It belonged to your father—
you—
now me.

Shoulders softened
into the shape of forgetting.
Just cotton.
Stale.
Clean.

DARA LAINE

Dara Laine (she/her) is a poet based in Baltimore, originally from a hay farm in New Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Journal, Pine Hills Review, LEON Literary Review, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. She was a Tupelo Press 30/30 poet in July 2025.