Treasure Map
After I’m gone, my children and husband will find
curious treasures, pause to decipher the woman
who kept a ribboned box, Japanese fan, or foreign coin.
To help, I slip tiny notes now for them to know
the black stone brought from the bottom of Lake Monroe
while diving like dolphins with their father
or the buckeye in my battered sewing box, the one
that rode long before in Granny’s pocket, rubbed dull
by superstition’s determined hand
or my dimestore Chewbacca on top of the computer, not
a toy at all, but a sci-fi gargoyle perched, protecting me
from demons at my word temple
or that Navajo eagle belt of silver that tinkled in its circle
around my girl-waist in Santa Fe, the girl certain
she was an Indian princess who could ride bareback
and those dented Seven-up liters of Carolina sand,
the bleached Mexican shells smuggled, suitcased,
from oceans I couldn’t leave behind, all put away, away.