Aba

 Aba,

Those sepia days you spent

Running, scraped knees

A "vilde chaya" on the streets

Of Squirrel Hill, I keep,

In an old, brown, velvet pouch

Tucked safe Into the space behind my eyes.

It's been there all these years, while so much

Else has been left behind: a kind

Of portable familiarity that

You once gave me.

But Aba,

I want you to know, that

I have finally found my own

A million miles and a

Thousand years from that

Butterscotch amber hued world that you’d

Once laid across my shoulders,

(I danced around in it, showing it off

Like a showgirl, given a

New fox stole.)

I think if you were here, you would

Say I'm weird,

But I swear, there are moments,

I can recall your childhood

More clearly than my own, and

I can't help but wonder: what, if anything

Does it say, that

So much of who I am

Was built of these bricks that

You had laid?