Trinkets

.

.

A ring.

[She wore it both ways, moving it to her right hand after Jacob was born.]

A pair of glasses. 

[Mock tortoise with hinges that make a tiny squeak when opened: I can see no more or less when I wear them. Did she wear them for reading? I am ashamed that I cannot remember.]

One shoe.

[Left, black, suitable for walking.]

 An open box of rubbers.

[When did we switch from the pill? I always complained.]

A turquoise and silver bracelet.

[Twenty years ago a thief entered our first house. He or she left the bracelet in the geometric center of our bed. Also left were a watch cap (in the bathroom sink) and a drinking glass on the kitchen floor. We kept only the bracelet.]

A book by Jan Karon.

    [My taste runs more to J.G.Ballard.]

A book by Wallace Stegner.

    [My taste runs more to Pynchon.]

A leather belt.

[Calf, impressed as if the skin of a reptile, it was reserved for those occasions when she wore jeans and a white blouse, open at the neck.]

A tangle of hair.

[wrapped around a pig bristle brush with a wooden handle. A trace of her scent lives there in the second drawer of the bath cabinet.]

A photo

[Five friends at the dinner table, laughing. I held the camera ]

A memory.

[A confusion of tears and damp thighs, of the scent of clean hair, and the weight of her breast in my hand, of places cold with her anger and warmed by her laugh, of a faint smile and a turned down lip, of hard silence.]