My mother always has something for me

A box. A jar of tomato sauce.
And if she has nothing she finds out
what I need or thinks of something I ought to have.
On Saturday mornings, I used to fly down
the stairs, and we would race to yard sales. 
We still go to yard sales and thrift stores too 
where my mother finds me a suitcase 
still tagged with someone else's address, 
a crumpled red ribbon that still shines.
I imagine the suitcase tumbling onto 
the conveyor belt, the feeling of home
 as it cruised toward familiar hands.
A flurry of comings and goings.
All the things my mother gives me 
makes me feel like I'm going somewhere, 
like I'm getting ready for something too.
I cradle the jar of tomato sauce,
the regifted box of chocolate truffles, 
four oranges in a paper bag.
I roll the suitcase toward its new home.
Tell it things won't be so different here. 

-

My mother accompanies me on the piano 

I'm fifteen or sixteen, 
and I'm singing about being a bell.
If I were a bell, I'd be ringing. 
I cup my hands around my mouth 
to feel the heat and breath of the song, 
to feel the vibrations.
I think a voice can be kept 
so I try to hold it in my hands, 
to not let it escape through my fingers.
My mother stops and thinks I'm hiding,
but I'm holding a bell in my hands,
feeling its solid curvature.
I try to hold the stillness 
between each breath, 
to check for coolness 
before the tongue strikes heat.
It never occurred to me to hide. 
Only to catch a fleeting thing.