My mother passed them on to me,

These keepsake things I so adore.

It's such a happy list you'll see.

 

That wonderful, wounded quality,

All angers and hurts that came before.

My mother passed this on to me.

 

Her own father dies almost endlessly,

And my father's death the rhyme restores.

It's such a happy list you'll see. 

 

She holds this sad fidelity,

Of letters and pictures in a drawer.

My mother passed them on to me.

 

All this hatred's just a love so deep,

Because everything's an either/or.

It's such a happy list you'll see. 

 

I'm sorry, never meant to be so nasty,

all ache and anger and nothing more.

But my mother passed this on to me,

It's such a happy list you'll see.