Once each day

At 9:20 p.m.

I get to cry

for 10 minutes instead of with each breath

and movement of my body

to touch a photograph, a pair of size 3 tennis-shoes

and a carebear grinning from their toes,

an orange magic-marker

the dolly’s dress she tormented the cat into wearing

because he loved her too.

He died 12 years after she did

Adding a red jingle-bell collar

to the pile of memories

that grows next to me like a lilac bush

where I lean into the fragrance of grief

absorbing dreams and dances with a little girl

that would have been 24 this year.