The Last Skin

Has anyone described the smell of wishbones drying on the kitchen sill or the smell of glass, or the bucket of water lifted from the well we go to when death takes the last thirst from someone we love? After my mother died, sometimes I'd take the one piece of her clothing I'd kept to bed and bury my face in her flowered blouse to smell her last skin, but even from the first it was futile. What I got was the smell of goneness, the smell of screen doors where moths have spent their wing powder beating failingly to reach the light. My massage therapist said she felt grief in my body like hard empty boxes. I felt like I was always handling dough, never wanting the kneading to be done, never wanting to bake the bread that meant the end of something having to do with a mother and daughter in a kitchen. My mother has been gone for years, and I begin to see, in the spots on the backs of my hands, in the shelf my cheekbones make for my cheeks, in the way I hold my mouth against gravity's pull, that I carry her with me, my skin, her skin, her last skin.