A Shrine We Built for All the Things We Couldn’t Hold

The red sweater my late grandmother knitted,
the one with pink elephant buttons.
Wax lips, still in plastic.
The honeybee we thought was sleeping.
Thank you notes you wrote
but forgot to send.
What can we dig out
of this collapsed house?
Dried goldenrod for good fortune,
a willow branch for weeping,
for drying tears.
Playground sound—jarred in blue glass.
A photograph of a dove I found
and cared for before delivering
her to a rehabber.
A basket of pills I tried,
and sometimes still take.
The cat’s teeth I found on the rug
in the living room.
My hair: a mousy cloud I build
from the brush, the shower wall.
The “baby’s first” book I haven’t bought.
Twenty cobwebs, perfectly intact.
A mud-rusted horseshoe,
              all the universe’s luck in the form of oil and vapor.

Originally published by Blood Orange Review in 2023