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When Mamaw stands up with the sun behind her you can see through the dress to her legs, and I am the perfect height to study the outline of the elastic stockings she wears, folded over at the top into a kind of cuff, which makes a darker band beneath her knees. My grandfather wears these, too; they seem part of a vocabulary of age, one of the assembly of items binding what would otherwise sag or separate or fall: elastic things, rubber things, corsets and belts and lifts, stays and trusses. All tend toward the beige region of the spectrum, and though they are called “flesh” they’re the color of no one’s skin, but the hue of mannequins or dolls.

— Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy by Mark Doty a.co/ipWBt3w