Things My Mother Left

From my Mother
I inherited a box.

It had her troubled childhood
Stacked in countless diaries.

A dusty scarf from her youth
That still had its faint perfume
Of a summer day and rejected love.

A bell jar full of dead fireflies
And a broken marriage.
A route map to her sorrow.
And dried leaves from our backyard
To remind her of the spring.

A monument for her motherhood
Built with bricks of guilt.

A postcard of her old age
That said, 'Love, Your Daughter'
With patterns of tears made on ink
As she strained to remember my name.

And at the bottom
A will that said 'I Love You, Dear'
Staggering and misspelt.