Dreamt I lost the handbag my grandmother left me –
the beaded one with the broken clasp and a wine stain.
I looked in the flowerbed she planted with rose-red geraniums
and behind the gas station she used to run in coveralls and perfectly curled hair.
Searched the old house she raised my father in
with fried eggs, and card games, and something you couldn’t quite call love.  

When I found it, full of glass eyeballs (the sort favored by taxidermists), I cried,
thinking of all the small creatures that had passed through her hands.
Who would ever keep a purse full of eyeballs?
I really didn’t know her all that well.
But she read my first poem, when I was 8
and said she loved it.  

At the bottom of the purse, with the unblinking conclave
was a diamond- unset.
Still sparkling amidst the menagerie of her wildcard tastes.
Cosmic wink, from wherever she is now.