What To Pack

Coffee, your favorite kind in the yolk yellow
container that you pay $5 per pound too much for
because it’s organic.
A mug, for the coffee, the navy blue one
with the peeling white crumbly letters reading
“World’s #1 Mom”.
Your special sugar cookies sprinkled with red sugar
to snack on when you’re hungry.
Goosie, your loved childhood stuffed black cat
grungy with sweat, dirt, and hugs.
A dime, the one you and I found at Disneyland
that was coined on your birthday,
just in case you need the change.
The lumpy scarf I knitted you for Mother’s Day
the one that’s always covered with cat hair
and will always keep you warm.
A hammer, a nail
to drill a hole through the wood
of your coffin,
a straw, as long as an elephant’s trunk,
to stick through the hole
through all that dirt over you,
to pierce through the surface of the grass

so when I visit on the third Tuesday of every month
and bring spotted orange tiger lilies
and talk to you about my job, my cat, my daughter,
I can tell myself that you’re listening,
that I’m not alone.