My Mother’s Song | Ada Pendill

I save the tickets from events and places I visit

In a box that belonged to my mother in her youth.

The old box is one of the things that remains.

I save tickets to remember my life

Though I don’t recall how it started

Or what compelled me to not forget that way.

I could have instead written lines like these

As breadcrumbs to find my way back.

To recall in the future, for example, my mother.

But my mother won’t live in the future,

So it’s a regret I will try to find my way away from.

And why did I never write about her like this?

In the box with my clump of memory tickets

Is a pouch with her old charm bracelet in it,

From the days when she was young.

Twenty tinkling memories spaced across the chain,

Charms of states my mother visited, Cyprus Gardens,

Tiki idols, St. Louis Zoo, Harrison High, and Honest Abe.

My mother’s memories twinkle more than mine

And the tinkle of the metal is like a song,

And with that song, I know her now in a way I won’t forget.

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Ada Pendill is a poet from the Philadelphia area