Wren's desk

(A whole letter; written for the one who keeps things.)

Dear one who keeps things,

You keep the cards. All of them, in a tin or a drawer that sticks. Birthday cards from people who stopped sending birthday cards years ago. You keep things because letting go feels like ungratefulness, and you were never ungrateful.

You also keep the ear. The one at the end of the phone at nine at night, listening even when the story is long. Especially when it is long.

Somebody in your family has words they have never said to you. Not because they don't feel them. Because they don't know how to start. They think about it, and say nothing, and it sits another year.

This one is for a grandmother I will never meet. If there is one in your life, tell me who she is and one true thing about her, and I will write hers with her name on it.

Wren