Did you know that in the will he made
before he lost his mind, he left it to me?
I cried when I read the old bequest, as if
there had been a subtle restoration
of regard before the bullied revision.

These gaudy heirlooms have little use
except the scrap of spirit they keep,
a sigh inside the gleam of a carbon heart
that is the bitter moral. It is what I hold now
and wish it was only a stone

to reset in the pretense
of carrying all that shimmers
into the world. I feel the loss all the same,
profound as the document that does not
even mention my name.

In my dream I thread fishing line
and hang his ring on a strand of sea glass,
watch it rattle in the wind, scatter its spray
of perfect yellow light, a sunlit apology
to my modest porch.