Dead Weight

In the back of the linen closet, behind the sheets

that smell of cedar and nothing, I found it.

A brass pineapple, heavy as a brick,

wrapped in a tea towel stained with old tea.

A decorative doorstop for a woman

who lived forty years in a house

with only sliding doors that hissed on their tracks.

I rubbed the metal leaf with my thumb,

but the tarnish is deep, a permanent bruise.

She moved this thing across four zip codes

just to keep it in the dark, a secret weight

she wasn't ready to drop.