888: Return in the Ordinary

By Dara Laine

                                 

You always were our magpie—

a feather from a red-tailed hawk found in the hay field,

glass Coke bottles dug from garden beds,

pins, rings, small red dice (three),

books pushed onto dressers

and bedside tables,

a splinter of the boardwalk in Asbury—

the one I once fell through,

sea glass, rubbed smooth—especially the blues—

your hands always full of what I’d one day miss.

 

The curator of our museum of ordinary things—

gathered and kept because you saw their shine.

I keep checking the living room shelf, my dresser top,

the quiet places where your small spells lived—

the corner by the sunflower cookie jar, under your fez,

where your totems used to gather,

where I still look

for something new to appear.

 

I haven’t wanted anything.

Not anything I could ask for and hope to receive.

But the night before the service,

I asked Mom if we had dark roast.

She said no.

But the next morning—just one.

Top of the stack. The kind you’d bring

if you still could.

 

Sometimes even now I say your name aloud

just to see what appears.

Not signs. Something softer—

memories, dreams, a wish.

Not superstition. Not proof.

A dare. My eyes narrow,

searching for a gleam.

Or a return.​​​