We were going through the box

We were going through the box

when I found it.

A ceramic frog, two inches tall,

painted green, yellow belly,

one foot chipped off at the ankle—

not cracked, just gone,

like it had been broken once

and nobody thought it needed mentioning.

No label on the bottom.

No price tag. Nothing.

I held it up and asked my aunt.

She turned it over and shrugged.

I called my cousin that night.

She said: I have no idea where that's from.

She said: just keep it.

Nobody wanted to throw it away.

So now it sits on the edge of my bathroom sink.

I see it every morning.

It survived three moves I know of.

My mother kept it through the divorce,

through the storage unit,

through whatever she was keeping

and whatever she was letting go.

It meant something or it didn't.

Whatever it meant to her

didn't come with it.

The foot is gone.

The frog is just sitting there

like it's waiting for someone

to remember.