Return by Maxine Scates

I was reading about faith. The author
said we return to what we believed in when
we were young, but I can say with certainty I did
not believe in a god, maybe gods though—
the ones I found in the Edith Hamilton Mythology
my mother gave me when I was a kid. As for
return, the word says something about time
I don’t understand unless it’s the way I stood
at the kitchen sink washing dishes and staring
at my mother’s collection of  birds and one
brass giraffe she bought at the zoo. I wondered,
if I put away all the things she wanted me
to remember her by would I keep remembering?

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