amongst the everyday
detritus of bank statements
and receipts
in an old five drawer metal filing cabinet
I find a Mother’s Day card that
was never sent, a handwritten note on the
yellowed envelope from my mother to her mother
“no reason to send this as you have died five days
before Mother’s Day”
the things I take from my own mother’s house,
two days after her death :
two bathrobes, worn thin
photo albums,
books of handwritten quotes-- collected over a lifetime
a long strand of freshwater pearls
I didn’t even know she possessed
the watch she refused to remove even hours,
minutes before her death
stating she wanted to know where she was
and the unsent card to her mother
the robes now contained in a cardboard box
on the top shelf of the upstairs bedroom closet,
too painfully personal for daily viewing
the pearls I try to wear often
the watch still ticking on the windowsill while I work
grief cannot be contained by metal or cardboard
and certainly not by human flesh
it slips out of me through the
salt in my tears
