Lips wavy in the chrome teapot’s reflection,
you mouth for-ty, slowly, and again,
for-ty, as if it were a word discovered,
not the years since your mother’s death.
Would it help if I mention the boxes
in the basement?
She’s there, in a tin, loosely wound
beneath sepia tissue paper, a braid
to worry in your fingers.
I want to tell you I wore a coat
today with a fur collar
like your mother’s mink pelts.
Black and oily, they smelled
of crowded ships and herring,
wood smoke on snow.
—Tina Barry
From Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing, 2016). Reprinted with permission of the poet.