Personal Effects

My mother keeps parts of me under her bed.
Parts she gave; parts
she took back.

Folded into tissues
and tucked inside envelopes
like little wage packets

are twists of my hair, my teeth,
my bracelet from the hospital –
things I never asked for,

whose capture
I didn’t resist, and above which,
dark nights, she tosses and turns.

I don’t miss them,
since they have been replaced
with new hair, new teeth,

and I could buy myself a bracelet
any time. But when I see her sometimes
...