so soon there’ll be nothing left—

but I know that no Designer would have such eradication in mind.

I know, too, that collectors have a passion for panic—

•

Curiosities

A floating poem after Adrienne

A plastic wishbone

A pearl button inside a plastic baby mug

Strands of black and gray hair tied with embroidery thread—Mother’s?—I don’t recall—

Dad’s jackknife with mother-of-pearl handle (From his father? Did his father give him any thing?)

Plastic scrimshaw pendant of a whale, a souvenir from Lahaina before my sister was born

Harold’s scrimshawed whale tooth

A wishbone

A doll’s guide to Kiyoto lodged inside a walnut, a bracelet from an elephant’s single hair, a Royal Hawaiian matchbox of sand, a plastic compass taken from sister

Kabuki ticket stubs

Mother’s choker of spiked coral beads from Florence that I now possess

•

envoy

below the range of sunlight

the larger order of the universe

chambers

alarms

•••

Notes on March 10, 1992

Returning home on that March night, Father stopped at a traffic light, then turned left toward the parkway ramp. An oncoming car ran the red and broadsided them.

According to the detective: around 11 pm in a nearby parking lot, a group of boys, white and armed with baseball bats, threatened two Pakistani youth. The altercation whipped into a car chase, the two ran a red light and hit Father’s car. The white kids slowed to look, then sped off.

Mother had said, “I’m going to rest my eyes.” Father must have told me—but who knows since he doesn’t even recall the stoplight.

The detective informed me, “Your mother died instantly.” That EMS had attempted to resuscitate her on the road. It was raining.

He also informed me that Father was at Yonkers General. My sister and I drove up to find him in the ER. He asked after Mother. When we told him she was dead, he shouted No No No. Before we left him to nod off, he asked us to notify a colleague.

Two days later, she was at the hospital with a homemade cake.

Now, clearing out his house these decades later, I am surprised to find the ticket stubs, either saved or forgotten. I do know that somewhere in the drifts of debris there is a skull that Father had used as a sketching model. All during our childhood he kept it in a coat closet, but in recent years took it out to pass along to a painter friend. Eventually, he forgot the skull’s whereabouts but noted to the friend, “Probably still in its plastic shopping bag.”

Holding the Kabuki tickets in my hand, I ask myself why Father—with all the rubbish he has told us—has never wondered out loud if before turning, he could have looked one more second to see the car careening toward them.