By John Bargowski

She was going in for new valves
and a bypass later that week,
so my mother asked me to drive her
to the bank where she signed a log
the branch manager initialed
before he swung the vault open
and let us into that metallic space
walled with rows of numbered doors.
His key first in the one with her number,
then hers in the other slot,
and the steel box she’d earned
by her loyalty slid from its shelf.
He led us to a private closet
with a chair and small table,
and when she lifted the box lid
there they were—the deed for a remnant
of the family farm, the cancelled
house mortgage, a copy of the title
for the last car my father owned,
his 30-year plaque from the slaughterhouse,
and a pinky ring with his initials,
a certificate for a stock gone bust,
her mother’s gold wedding band,
the Silver Anniversary bracelet
she wore only to weddings,
a lock of hair from my first haircut,
and under it all, her bridal corsage,
wrapped in yellowed cellophane,
and while I stood near she peered
inside the manila envelopes
that held the legal papers,
touched each piece of jewelry,
the curl of hair, and tattered remains
of the corsage she’d worn
just above her heart, a desiccated
rosebud pierced with a rusted pin.

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John Bargowski’s newest book is American Chestnut (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). His first book, Driving West on the Pulaski Skyway, was selected by Paul Mariani for the 2012 Bordighera Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the New Jersey Council on the Arts and the Theodore Roethke Prize from Poetry Northwest.