Innumerable soft, flat shoes

Colloquy with this post.

Innumerable soft, flat shoes,
twenty or more cardigans,
some house coats,
petticoats,
others I think were thrown away
by the nursing staff.

Her jewellery and its box
were separated,
one to daughter, the other to granddaughter:
they shared her possessions as they share her name.

You cannot have her;
she is dead.
You cannot say her name
save in her absence.

(When we asked
why she didn’t see her father before he died,
she cried:
“I can’t —
I can’t remember.”)

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