Her eye sight was starting to go
years before I was born.

We frequently conspired that when we hit
the jackpot we’d spend it on ourselves.

Her communion gift is a ****** Mary basin,
collecting dust instead of holy water.

Near the end she switched grandpa’s photo
with her own, wrinkle free at nineteen.

Weak tea, fig turnovers, cats scratching behind
the cellar door—my memory is a dulled down

knife, whittling her scent from an apartment, to
a shoebox, to the celibate earring in my palm.

Her ugly wool Christmas sweater sits
in the bottom drawer—

I take it out and do not cry
but I worry that I did not know her.