These are the black shells that washed up from the ocean
\nas you were leaving.
\nSee? I have them here on this little shelf turned altar.
\nHere is your photo with Becky and the dogs.
\nHere is the angel you drew
\nwhen you learned of the cancer.<\/p>\n
This is the dryer ball in the shape of a hedgehog.
\nRemember when I sent that to you?
\nYou said the bouncing sound in the dryer made you laugh
\nand that made me happy.
\nSomehow Michael knew to send it back to me afterward.
\nAnyone would wonder why a dryer ball belongs on an altar.<\/p>\n
It is sacred. <\/em><\/p>\n And here are your words sweeping across the sky \u2013 Here. Now. Forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These are the black shells that washed up from the ocean as you were leaving. See? I have them here on this little shelf turned altar. Here is your photo with Becky and the dogs. Here is the angel you drew when you learned of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2018],"class_list":["post-64709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","tag-letter-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64755,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64709\/revisions\/64755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe way you signed your letters
\nwith a flourish:
\nPeace. Love. Patti.
\nI repeat these words and they transform:<\/p>\n