The poem poignantly recounts the speaker's memories of a loved one, who carries significant emotional weight as a figure from their past. Through vivid imagery, the speaker reflects on the items left behind, symbolizing the person's life and relationships. The struggle of navigating grief is interwoven with lessons learned from this individual, highlighting the complexities of caring for those we've lost. The poem raises profound questions about how we manage memories, artifacts of the past, and the emotional labor involved in remembrance and caretaking.
Careful, she carried so little: the mother who left her, the stepmother who kept her, a cardigan bright as a cardinal, nearly four years in a prison camp.
From her I learned to scull diagonally across precarious water, to write long hand a handful of words- mizu, obāsan, sumimasen- an artful way to arrange carnations in a glass.
For her, to care was to never be a bother. To cake concealer over jaundice. To conceal the water pooling under skin.
How can we caretake what remains? A closet stockpiled with sardines. Silver coins squirreled in drawers.
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