As I’m filling out the information online
for the return of a blouse I have apparently
purchased twice,

of course, having no memory of doing so,
you’re at my shoulder: “Jan, can you
return this for me?”

You were forever buying things online—
often cute shoes—that turned out to be
cheap knockoffs from China

that didn’t fit or pinched or were somehow
not right. Not that they were outrageously
turquoise or too blingy

(no such thing to your dimming eyes),
but they needed to go back. Invariably,
no paperwork had arrived with

the whatevers that indicated wherever
they could be returned, much less
an order number,

though you’d produce what you’d saved
from your online interaction. Twice,
when I sent things to the “return” address

on the pouches, paying the postage,
they both returned as “undeliverable.”
And though Donna and I reminded you

not to buy from questionable sites
(“but it was on Facebook,” you’d protest),
you did. In the end, I’d donate

the unwanted to our favorite thrift stores,
frequent beneficiaries. It wasn’t about
getting your money back so much as

wanting to do the right thing—to send it
back from whence it came. Which, in the end,
is what we, your girls, hoped happened for you.

Return to sender, to that place of mystery
to which none of us living has the address,
where, we pray, you drifted when it was time,

no postage due.