Legacy
Five silver spoons
in a velvet-lined box
each topped with an
apostle
a gift from my
grandmother
on my parents' wedding
day.
My sister tagged them
with a post-it note
on her visit to our
father's house
the day after pneumonia
took him
changed her mind when
she saw one missing.
It wasn't just the
spoons;
she marked up the
silverware, the crystal,
the drop-leaf table
with the William Morris carving;
bagged the money in the
top-left drawer and said:
Let's not bother
with a headstone.
When the house sold I
cleared his garden.
Cut down my mother's
roses,
his dahlias, the
wisteria I planted when I was a child;
bagged up the compost
heap
(it was too good to
waste)
and right at the
bottom, bright from being under the earth
was the missing
apostle.
My father's chuckle
from the grave
and the robin he fed
with garden worms
alighted on the garden
spade.
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