Just gloves,
thin, unlined, wrist-length, black leather gloves,
survivors from another era by dint of neglect and indecision,
I culled them from the basket,
determined now, now they can be gone.
And with that now, a shallow stroke,
I disturbed the past, stirred it deeply up.
Not just gloves,
pieces of my mother I had not known
were still resident in my brain.
Long, long ago
I had turned my face from where they lay,
trusting them to stay seamlessly integrated,
buried, forgotten,
like the gloves had been.
Silly, I said to myself, silly to think this way.
The gloves are just gloves.
I don’t need them any more to think of her.
My daughter’s face alone is enough
to evoke more memories than I want.
The gloves can go,
their message delivered:
those pieces, too, deserve another look from me.
