Spring cleaning,

Mom says to clear away things that we don’t need.

The clay elephant statue you molded me from your garden’s soil is tucked away into a drawer

She says I’m a Xerox copy of you– no one really knows what Xerox is anymore--

it’s a copier, a little machine that scans an image and spits it out again, but this time a little faded in the corners.

I guess I’m the image of you, a little faded in the corners because America makes her children soft. 

You used to tell me that one day, upon leaving this world, you and me and everyone that we came from would reunite in the skies together. 

In the star-flecked cosmos of our ancestors, would you recognize me? 

Spring cleaning,

Fresh starts.

Our house here is bone-clean, aching to be touched by love, the feeling after scrubbing numb hands in cold water– a desperate longing to feel warmth.

If you were here, I think it’d be a little less pristine, 

maybe the beaded pillows would be askew because you’d nap on the couch taking in the Arkansas sun, feeling it warm your blood and breathe light into your soul, telling me that our skin is meant to be bronzed because it is the Earth’s kiss to us

Maybe we would learn to bake cookies American-style

like a real grandma and granddaughter, 

extra butter and flour stuck underneath our fingernails.