What's Left

The can fits in my palm like a small grave.

Its dent is a fist from years ago—

someone I loved made this mark,

and the tin decided to save

the memory in metal.

The label's almost gone.

I can't quite read what it held—

beans maybe. Something my mother

kept on the shelf,

the way I keep the can.

I don't know why I save these things.

The cabinet's full of newer shapes,

useful and shiny, never bent,

never touched by a hand

that loved and left.

But this one—light as breath,

heavy as all of it—

fits in my palm like a day

I never learned to save,

like something I should have known.