The Only Deed the Dye Lane Ever Signed

Ask the Divan’s clerk to price the blue soaked into Dye Lane’s stone — he will tell you plainly: no deed, no hand, no signature.

Eleven years a woman kept her father’s house on his word alone; now a landlord wants a mark, wants a signature.

Her father left no parchment when he left her the door — only a threshold worn smooth by his signature.

The cochineal vat does not ask the red inside its ring for proof. Wool goes in unnamed, comes out wearing its signature.

Three hundred years of indigo have refused to lift from stone that never once demanded a signature.

My own floor keeps a stain my teacher’s teacher left there — I never thought, before tonight, to read it as her signature.

Perhaps this is the oldest deed a house was ever given: not ink that swears to it, but color as its signature.

Zara, you have spent nineteen years chasing parchment for your name — go home. Kneel down. The floor has kept the better signature.