Years later,
sorting mail,
bills from junk,
things Mom can’t be bothered with,
I hear her fruit earrings rattling
down the hall.
She matches our apartment:
plastic oranges and bananas drip from her ears,
her lips painted red peppers,
bright like our dining room table.
Her hair a tousled salad like
laundry left unfolded in piles.
Down the hall,
Mom’s artwork:
glass roosters and fish hijack the bookshelves,
infest the coffee table.
As many times as I try
to place them in cabinets
or line them in height order,
they march back in,
a disordered stampede,
a resurrection.
Mom’s closet:
green scarves overlapping purple purses,
scattered costume jewelry
falling on top of random shoes, socks.
Mine: jeans, hung, creased,
sweaters folded in color order.
One pair of sneakers, flats, boots, clogs.
One mom
one daughter
mis-
matched.