Objects, Permanence

Framed magnolia leaves from Seattle’s Arboretum,

split of tobacco-curing cabin wood, blue jay feather,

your Grandma’s old ring on your finger. I see them

every day, thank god: we’ve made this house together.

I forgot. So I resurrect my mother’s memory: dragged ceaseless

that strange animal through the house till it

was gone. And then, I hear her voice—yes, voices

I keep best—as it comes later through the flapping fabric

of a monkey’s mouth, see her hand exaggerate the lack,

shaking shaggy arms she knows will make me squeal.

She could animate any form: monster, my father, macaque,

those few voicemails I’ve kept—dull sounds, like rust off your silver ring.

We try to keep what makes us

memory, yours sealed

in their stilled craft, mine what smothers me soft in their telling.