for my sister

Not everything was buried with the dead,
and here, all that we salvaged, then forgot,
lies under a hornet’s nest, in a windy shed:

Baskets of silk hydrangeas, weak with rot,
beside her china; his pressed and folded flag;
a sun-withered landscape in an ornate frame;
our stuffed toys bulging from a plastic bag—.

Once, all of this was loved, before it became
a reminder of love,
++++++++++++++but now, beside the creek,
where swarms of tiger lilies toss in the wind,
mosquitoes walk the still, the stagnant waters—

and locked in this shed, of which we hardly speak,
are all the fears of two reluctant daughters
who found no comfort mattered in the end.

Original appearance in Crab Orchard Review.