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Julianne Mari·e Lechman

I Kept Her Pens

longer than her naked nylon-haired
dolls, toeless black slippers, or hand-
braided change cache, its wrinkled mouth
pulled shut with a yellow loop of rawhide.

I was polishing
the cherry dresser
when I spilled
half her collection
from a rust-ringed onion
soup can wrapped in blue felt.

They rattled,
spread across the dark
wood like a silk fan.

I remember

how she hugged
the tapered violet ballpoint
with the stretching lion
in tiny white fingers,

and the dusty
gold she won flinging
traded marbles
across a steamy
August playground.

A thread-fine crack
spiders the one she crushed
under a shaky wheel
at Garden Spray rink,