Elegy with Partial Inventory

My mother's house has been dismantled
into parts that do not resemble a house—

There was a waist-high porcelain jar 
painted over with dragons and clouds;

it was part of a pair. There was cabinet with a glass
door which held a catalog of her best dresses.

Only pleats of dust hang there now with the mauve
of memory, the brittleness of bone. 

Once she wielded a gaze sharp as the silver
blades of her sewing scissors.

Once she was tender and trellised like a woven
blanket worked in daisy chains.

She was the last door closing quietly when they folded her arms 
over her chest, the silver-blue stones that led to the gate.