In your home,
That is filled with dust,
And moth-balled filled drawers,
Are letters that were never sent,
And dead flowers fill your vases.

Your walls are lined with dusty photo frames,
With pictures that tell your story
In vivid color.

Pictures of you, when you were younger.
Pictures of you, in your 20’s,
When you ventured off to job corps
And met our father.

Pictures of all four of your marriages,
My brother’s first sonogram,
Followed by the nine months you carried him,
In your womb.
His baby pictures,
His school pictures,
Pictures of you and him,
Pictures of him just because,
In that light he looked like our father.

Frame after frame tells a story,
Of a mother with a child she loves unconditionally.
But....
At the very end, hangs an
Empty picture frame.

That, is where you keep me,
The un-wanted.
This, is how you remember me,
The un-loved.
This, is how you reminded yourself,
That I was there running around,
On the edges of your vision, and memory.
But not important enough to you,
To put my picture in the empty frame.