Keys that unlock
long left locks and the wooden button
from my winter coat,
motherhood and children,
and one brown sock,
a friendship untended,
luggage loaned,
a father, a home,
an umbrella left on the train,
my grandmother’s brooch,
a favorite book, a tree covered lane.

Growing longer each year,
words and regrets,
lists of things lost,
unrecoverable, irretrievable,
bound vellum sets in
ink stained chains of script
words written between the lines
and around the margins
erased, glued, sewn,
thin and tattered,
so as not to forget.

I leave the long list upon the altar,
and lighting the candle,
the scent of rue and asphodel fill the air.