Button

I found it in the back of the drawer,
a pearl button, blind as a dead eye.

For years it had listened
to the darkness in there,
the safety pins breeding,
the lint gathering itself
into little gray lambs.

I knew that button.

It had once lived
on my aunt’s blue dress,
the one she wore
when she kissed me goodbye
and looked me in the face.

Strange how grief survives.