Materna

2.  Nominative: Genitive

                       "The Genitive is the possession case, used 
                       to indicate that one thing is owned by, controlled by, 
                       or connected to another."

What did they find when mother 
was moved out of her last house and into 
a nursing home? More than 30 
umbrellas. A marble coffeetable. 
Cabinets that used to gleam with crystal  
and porcelain. Cracked light
fixtures, father's silk shirt that he wore 
on New Year's Eve: red dots 
on a field of faded gold—hand
wash only or dry clean.

Where do they go when we
go, the things we used to own?

They were no landed
gentry, no newly rich with robust
stocks or summer houses. 
Always careful, my father
might have been the type who kept
all his cash in socks or in a pillow case 
stuffed under the mattress. And she
who loved her pink Fabergé
Shower of Flowers and the novelty
of its dusting powder pouf;
who hailed a door-to-door salesman
carrying a set of Chinese urns 
emblazoned with gold dragons?

I do not think I ever saw her keep
a checkbook but she was frugal
in her own ways. I still have
the underskirt she sewed for me
when I was six: garter at the waist,
crimson ribbon coiled into a rosebud.
White scalloped communion veil
around whose hem I glued
the tiniest felt circles.

Money 
terrifies me—
the lack of it, the sudden
abundance of it; the eventual
dispossessions.

In the early days, 
we lived with my parents
when the children were very young.
I used to hide
part of my paycheck
from their father.

When the women
sewed together, I heard
what I thought were riddles.

What do you do
when your man comes home
after spending everything 
or losing everything?

Sometimes they held
four or five pins 
between their lips 
while twisting a fold
of cloth or piping into 
submission.

Kitchen pans
hurled in fury made a sound
that left oily maps on the wall.

Where do we go after the things 
that owned us are gone?