A pair of greened copper earrings,
a tarnished silver makeup brush.
Old cassette tapes
with your handwriting
in black pen on the sleeves,
worn soft as felt over time.
A water-rippled cookbook
with a recipe for kugel
on one stained page.
Memories of your body,
your chest hair glossy as a cat’s whiskers.
I gave away the good stuff when we broke up:
the sogata tea pot,
the bora bora salad tongs,
the midnight-blue velvet blanket,
the sheer peach nightgown
your mother gave me for Christmas
the year of your affair.
I don’t even have my wedding ring.
And the baby I miscarried?
I saw her in a dream.
Sara Wallace is the author of The Rival. Her poetry has appeared in such publications as Agni, Hanging Loose, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, Yale Review and others. As a neurodivergent person with low-frequency hearing loss, she enjoys advocating for people with disabilities however she can. She lives in Queens.