What I Saw You Carry

I do not help you raise our family as if the work belonged to you. I pack the bag because it is ours.

The flowers arrived on time. The card used my best handwriting. We laughed through dinner,

Three women share the third pew. One raised four children. One became the adult

My mother's faith was rarely loud. It lived in lunches wrapped at dawn, a name kept on the prayer list,

He doesn't know I keep a list. Not on paper—in the body, in the part that doesn't forget.

The caterpillar is not trying to teach you anything. It's just eating a leaf.