What She Left

I found it in the back,

my mother's old tin,

the label worn black,

the metal paper-thin.

She smoothed it on her hands

when winter came and cracked

the skin in small demands,

would soothe what time attacked.

I opened it today,

and there was still the smell—

not perfume in the way

of flowers, but the spell

of something used and kept,

something small and real,

the way her fingers swept

across skin that needed heal.

I could use it now,

my hands are breaking too,

but I don't know how

to let this be through.

If I take what's left,

if I use it to the end,

then what remains of the heft

of her? What proof of friend?

So back into the drawer,

back where it can sit,

back to what it's for—

proof that she was it.