Jenny Della Santa

Associations with impaired cognitive function, my mother’s necklaces

Fallen petals fan 
across the photo on your bedside table 
Air pollution and low socioeconomic      You’ve knocked it over, again
even though it’s your favorite
Neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular, aluminum 
drinking water    lead      

In it, you tilt your face away from the camera    eyes lowered, a devilish grin
clutching the hem of your dress, strapless white taffeta    Exposure    
variants, air pollution, accumulated risk  
A single gardenia pinned behind your ear

On the back of the door, your necklaces   undisturbed    hang   
brass chokers, rosaries, aurora borealis
Those genes will ultimately develop a strand of       rhinestones resting on your collarbone         
A simple black carbon     

You ask me the name of the girl in the picture        inherit cognitive 
suffering carried in DNA     diminishing grey matter
 lung-brain axis     

so I reach for the locket engraved with your initials   
solvents 
electromagnetic fields 
attached to a thin gold chain

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