Samantha Steiner is a writer and visual artist. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Find her on social media @Steiner_Reads.
there are objects I love
a ceramic bird in the bathroom feathered
with blue strokes the name of its birth
country near where its navel might have been
a lemon juicer in the kitchen drawer
hammered from steel bigger than any
lemon so big it must be held
with two hands always
an atlas by the piano thick frail
pages all washed with stars rivers
the forests of his birth country
of course there was his wife
in the sun and fog she opened a window
into a balcony grew apples baked cakes
the best baker he knew
and there was his brother
together in the cellar they measured
planks into shelves they filled
with bottles they opened over
rare meats tart sauces
recollections of the war
there was his mother in a puff of silver
hair drawn and framed on the wall
of the dining room
I met his mother once
before I had a memory for
a hundred years the family produced
boys then I arrived
she was ecstatic
now she eyes me curious
you would have liked her he tells me
hiking his thumb toward her
he prepares for me stews roasts reductions
plates pans bowls at ninety five
he lives alone drives shops argues yells
makes lemonade with bubbles
jet lag wakes me in the dark
in the bathroom I find the ceramic bird
from his wife whom I loved
over the cellar he built
with his brother whom I loved
not far from the portrait of his mother
whom I might have loved
if there were time
he sleeps in the next room
of course I love him too
in the mirrored wall I see my shadow and in it
all of them stirring swirling gone
a legacy a ghost story
or maybe i’m the ghost
haunting them
or maybe i’m the ghost
when you read this gone