My sister said to me in the driveway,
her truck and my car, which not long ago
was Mom’s car, full with the final loads

from the house our parents called home
since 1966. Weighted with so much stuff
bound for my own over-full house—

so much I have still to comb through
of hers, of his, of mine—and needing
to get moving to deliver some

of the stuff to young people into
vintage stuff, we did not linger. And
therefore, the tears that might have

sprung from my eyes waited until
after we’d delivered and dropped off,
after we had dinner at a place in

my neighborhood we’ve loved for
more than three decades. Not until
I carried her wedding dress over

my threshold, along with his impossibly
small Army jacket, and set them on
my bed did my sister’s words land:

We did it. We’re done.

The house is cleared out, ready for
its next act with the next generation,
for renovations that will erase so much

of what was, that will make room
for what will be. And I sat on my bed
to open the 70-year-old box that

migrated with her from her nursing
school dorm in Chicago to California,
marveling at the gossamer veil

as delicate and as strong as a
newly spun spiderweb, holding it
next to the dress she wore

when they married, when
everything began for them,
for all of us.