We found you
In the far back corner
Of the garage,
Stashed under the butcher table
Turned handy-man workbench,
At the bottom of a well-worn toter
With “Cemetery” scrawled in black Sharpie
In our mother’s hand.
Propelled forward by the weight of
Sifting through and measuring the
Sentimentality and significance
Of storage shed wealth,
Trying to not confuse the worth
Of tchotchkes and trinkets with
Love and loyalty,
And intoxicated with memories of
Wooden blocks and clay marbles,
Black and white photos,
A sharply folded pair of Marine Corps issued Khakis
And a veil with seeded pearls
We dig further into the container.
Beneath the flowers in folded wax paper
Fastened with a safety pin
And the dance cards from the junior senior prom—
Beneath the immaculately preserved wedding cards and cake topper,
Expired passports and old baseball gloves,
Hand-sewn Barbie clothes and childhood drawings—
There you are, wrapped tightly in your blue and white bread wrapper,
Just a soft butter-yellow blanket
With the 25-cent price tag still pinned to the corner
As clean and bright and soft
As the spring day it was bought some sixty odd years ago
And a small blue and pink candy-striped bracelet,
But still much more of you, our brother, than we’d ever known.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 6.
Marla J. Jarmer is a professor of rhetoric and composition, the writing center director, and the editor of written works for Waiting for Rain at Danville Area Community College in Danville, Illinois, where she has been awarded both the A. L. Webster Endowed Chair (2016) and the Dorothy Duley Endowed Chair (2014 and 2017). She currently serves as the assistant editor as Liaison for Two-Year College Caucus at AWP for Open: Journal of Arts,& Letters, is the co-editor and a contributing author of The Bully Pulpit, Presidential Speeches, and The Shaping of Public Policy (Roman and Littlefield 2015), and has published works of poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction.
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