Trashed Notebooks
Before mom's hands began shaking, she decided to copy the Bible. Like a scribe, she treated things holy. Washed her hands and her heart. Sharpened her pencil fresh. Sat with a clean spiral notebook with a yellow cover. The color of joy. She started with Genesis. She stopped in Leviticus when she couldn't recognize herself in the curves and accidental jots and tittles (Matthew 5:18). When her hand refused to stick the graphite to the page and looked more like conducting Sousa's marching beat. Last week, while taking out the garbage, I saw pressed ribbon that used to hold old letters. Frayed and flat with time. Faded against the flaked rust at the bottom of the dumpster. The swath of blue prenatal appointment cards, nineteen sixty six confetti. A few black and white snapshots of some folks I knew, but never when they looked like that. School teacher versions of mom over the decades peeked between plastic, tin foil, and Coke zero cans because there's no place to recycle...