My father read aloud a poem about you,
How you looked for broken glass along dirt roads.

You kept them in a jar inside your closet,
Each glossy face that scratches and corrodes.

Your coffin, it was blue, or maybe white,
And it sat as you would, if you were still here.

Your quietness was louder than in death
And we sang your grace in hopes that you might hear.

My brother, that does not cry, began to cry
And I hung my head to hide your sad lament.

As my mother held my father in her arms,
we understood what his glass poem meant.

He remembered you the way you always were—
Collecting glass along those old dirt roads

Admiring the edges, rough and smooth,
The way the precious mineral corrodes.