Waste Not, Want Not

by Joan Pedzich

My mother shrinks in her bed. She sloughs off ninety years, making light work of herself. Only her cough grows, and the number of times she says she is ready. We go through her house and find her still there – in the twist ties and plastic bags, the aprons in their original boxes, and in every postcard she ever received from so many travelers who wished she was there. Under the sink we find a ball of soap shards – her handmade sphere of waste not, want not. This is what I’ll take instead of the silver tea service.

6S

Joan Pedzich is a law librarian and writer living in Webster, New York. She has a clever and attractive family, gets along with lawyers, mixes a mean Cosmopolitan, and needs to work on her short game.