After my daughter died, I looked

for her life anywhere it could have been

hiding—chocolate coins at the bottom

of my flower vase, a piggy bank tucked

into the movie cabinet. I still find iridescent 

heart-shaped confetti in the carpet, caught along 

the baseboards from a long-ago surprise toy. 

Her socks are under the coffee table. A squishy

toy behind the cedar chest. Her baby doll 

laid to rest in a wash cloth in the laundry 

basket. There’s a juice bottle I find 

in our car under the back seat. The top 

is a cartoon pony—Sparkle Fly or Rainbow 

Mint, I can’t remember what she named it. 

Do we leave the tree house outside, the Power 

Wheels Princess Carriage, the pile of pretty 

rocks she collected on the sidewalk? 

I still look for them. I spent the week after 

her death digging in the gravel of our driveway

for a glint until my fingertips turned red 

and throbbed. I made a broken quartz 

monument next to our pond where we walked.

I want to believe in the magic she saw

in the rocks she gathered in her pockets,

that somehow it can call her back to me.

No one warns you about the shrine you’re building

to live in when they’re gone, how hard it is to keep 

going on, when your house and car and yard 

and heart are waiting for them to pick up

wherever it was that their body stopped.  

---