Cleaning Out My Mother's House

 

Cleaning Out My Mother’s House

 

Those Hallmark cards

we never gave each other growing up

No one did Birthday cards or Valentine’s

 

The tidal waves, the waterfalls

The syrupy words and pictures of butterflies

were not for us

Yet for some reason in my thirties

I began to send them

Received no thanks

No comments

 

Cleaning out my Mother’s house

I found the stash

of Mother’s day and Anniversary cards

I had sent.

 

They were ­­­­­—  carefully saved

in a box tied with ribbon

  

 

Elizabeth Fletcher

 

Elizabeth Fletcher’s poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, Orchard Hill, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Swarthmorean, The Scarlet Leaf Review, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal, among others. Her nature essays about sea turtles and Snowy owls have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.She is a co-author of numerous medical education research and informational publications. She has a BA in English from Hamilton College, and an MS in Technical Communication from Drexel University. She was an editor and writer for The National Board of Medical Examiners, Philadelphia, PA for many years and is now a freelance writer and poet. She lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA, a small college town famous for its trees.