What We Kept Without Meaning To

We saved the drawer for last. The closets done,

the pantry, all the boxes labeled right.

My mother said the drawer could wait. We waited.

Then I pulled it open—warped wood, the slight

resistance it had always had—and spread

the contents on the counter: birthday candle

burned to less than two inches, a motel key

with a plastic tag, no number, no handle

on any memory. A takeout menu,

the restaurant on Forrest, closed in 2003.

And then the watch. No band. I picked it up.

The crystal fogged. The spring gone slack. My free

hand turning it—the hands stopped near four-fifteen.

I said whose watch. She kept on taping. I don't

know, she said. Just that. Matter-of-fact.

She'd moved that drawer through years. She won't

have sorted it once. I said it must be someone's.

She said throw it out. I said I will.

I wrapped it in the menu. Brought it home.

I keep picking it up. The hands are still

at four-fifteen. The spring still slack inside.

I keep putting it down.

I don't know whose time that was.

I don't know what I think the keeping means.