Bluesky

she signed each letter. I carried them with me,never imagining one day she would be never,be dream, be archive, be Ziploc full of ashin a Styrofoam urn. Careful, she carried so little:the mother who left her, the stepmotherwho kept her, a cardigan bright as a cardinal,nearly four years in a prison camp fenced by pineswhose ragged canopies tore at the sky.From her I learned to scull diagonallyacross precarious water, to write longhanda handful of words—mizu, obāsan, sumimasen—an artful way to arrange carnations in a glass.Have I been careless with the past? How can we caretakewhat remains? A closet stockpiled with sardines.Silver coins squirreled in drawers. A picture of herat New Year’s looking both delighted and sad.For her, to care was to never be a bother.To cake concealer over jaundice. To conceal the waterpooling under skin. I caressed her foreheadbefore they carried her away.