Dear Mom...

I threw away your baby shoe. There was
only one, brown and white leather--size baby shoe.
I threw away your pink corduroy baby bonnet,
with the satin white bows all trimed in lace.
Cutie pie purrs next to me, laying
on the bed as I write this.
He was there when you died.
Me, you and Naomi.
We moved out of your tiny social security
apartment,
the one where Naomi and I slept on a mattress
on the floor, where two feet away--you smoked
and popped pimples and talked about
monies from the Bank of Bangledesh or France or Ireland,
as we slept.
You left a lot of stuff there, but you told me
to make sure I took the box in the closet,
you said I'd want what was in it.
Letters from school friends,
grandpas Navy cap,
drawings and writings,
Beatles memorabilia.
I condensed a large box of stuff into a
smaller one.
I threw away the leaves you pressed
in wax paper, from 1965.
These words are all that's left
of the stuff I threw away.
I think about the people who live
in animal dung huts and how they live.
Passing on traditions through words.
They don't pay gas or electric bills,
they have no running water.
I don't mind throwing broken antiques
into a box,
and hearing the clank and break of treasures once cherished.
Boxes full of stuff,
how long must it be passed on?
There are no words to go with them.
Who knows the story?
I came across a birthday card, mom.
I was two years old when I gave it to you.
I remember the card with the lady
on the front, holding a cute kitten in her arms
she is dressed in a patterned blue dress
with a white apron,
the cat is black and white.
I gave it to you 33 years ago.
I kept it, put it in the box,
with the other random choices.
I threw away the Christmas tie
that used to plays carols.
I threw away the thing that covers your
eyes while you sleep,
it said, dream big dreams.

To touch someone with words,
is like touching someone who is blind.
Once the words touch you,
you don't forget.
Feeling blind is not the same,
as seeing blind.
Everyone hears in their soul.
We often mistake,
seeing for hearing.
Feeling requires no seeing or hearing or taste or touch.
People write about what they see, feel or hear or smell.
Nothing can be any of these;
therefore nothing doesn't exist.
I feel nothing is
no thing, I understand.
Stuff exists
and we are full of stuff.
Forever, I will remember the dream
when you told me the only difference between
life and death...
is sound.

Margaret my mother, I love you.
*fairies glisten and sing Happy Birhtday--03-01