The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: How to Keep Things Alive by Beth Gordon

---

Full of Grace

You are the only other person who knows where we buried the moonshine.
You know the names we gave to dogwood trees by the creek: lost cause,
    foolish heart.
Which roots hold Uncle Jim’s secret cornbread recipe.
Who else was there when the chickadee pair argued over twigs and dry
    moss?
When we drank coffee that smelled like strawberries in a firepit. 
When the geese across the valley traded hidden codes in their rhymes.
A crate of martini glasses in the cob-webbed square beneath the stairs.
Dig deep enough and you’ll find the guard dog’s skeleton and deeper  
    still, an unnamed cousin who carried the bullet with him: his rib cage   
    like a china cabinet.
Another crate for champagne flutes and the deviled egg tray: painted
    with a bouquet of lilacs or hydrangea: we never could agree.

We murdered the line of azaleas that failed to bloom for three cold Springs.
You know their final resting place and final song.

I know where your mother’s white dishes are hidden: the box labeled
    mousetraps and jelly jars.
The key to your storage unit where her green-stamp bureau resides.
I know that your thyroid function is fine this week but your hemoglobin
    levels are low.
When the doctor calls I won’t ask which sin lit up your chart like a vine.
When the doctor calls I’ll know: black ice or arsenic: slick pine needles:
    the layer of pollen that turned your white car as golden as a calf.
The log truck in your rearview mirror: smoking furnace: tangled electric
    lines.
Lead in the water: water in the basement.
The last drop of whiskey: flat tire on a murky mountain road.

I’m already ready for it. I’m wearing my funeral shoes.
I’m already ready for it. Your heart in a puddle by the bed.

---