Ona Gritz Luggage Tucked among my spare socks, favorite skirts, sun screen, shampoo: a box so dense and dark the x-ray couldn't read it. Of course they had to spill it all, lace bras, backless shoes, my floss, my books, until they unearthed it. "Do you know what this is?" one guard asked the other. Then he answered himself as if I weren't there, as if to say it was to ace the test. "This is human remains." "It's my mother," I said, feeling a strange mix, unseen yet exposed, my mother must have felt in her hospital gown. From that cold counter, I gathered my things, walked toward the plane that would take me to my brother. He and I, after all, were what was left of her flesh. That box of ash and bone ours alone to find a home for.

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