After Martha’s Wake

Carl Boon

They used to call her radiant.
That was her chair
next to the empty parakeet cage
now covered—perhaps forever—
with light gray silk.

She sewed there, read Balzac,
and applauded Christmas Eves
while her grandchildren
practiced minuets and swore
they could hear the snow fall.

But now we must consider
her arrays of things:
the reading glasses, the candlelight,
the old European currency
stashed everywhere. We must

believe the way that she did
that useless might be necessary,
that the evanescent returns—
pipesmoke and poetry—
though she will not.

I’ll begin with the combs and garland;
you take the mirrors and mistakes.
Together we might transform
this room to a place
meant for another.