Today's April PAD prompt was to write about an object. So, I cheated again and posted one I had already written -- one that has been laying in the bowels of my computer files since I wrote it for a writing class years ago. I did do a few edits and additions, so it is not altogether an old poem.
I still love this object. It's been a part of me all my life.
My Family Heirloom
The pitcher stands tall on the
bookcase in our bedroom
like a poised and majestic flamingo
with hand-painted and hand-signed
art deco magenta and green geometrics
trimmed in gold leaf.
My mother thought it came from Europe
sometime in the 1930s.
After some investigation
I discovered the pitcher was from Europe,
and the painting done later on
in Chicago.
I remember seeing it
first at my grandmother’s
atop her armoire in her tiny
seventh floor apartment
on Chicago’s West Side.
When she died it came to my parents
where it always stood
on a mantel in Chicago, Phoenix,
Los Angeles, Culver City
or wherever else they lived
until my mother gave it to me.
I never told her how much I wanted it.
Somehow she just knew.
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