The Last Things I'll Remember

In The Last Things I'll Remember, Randi Schalet writes from inside the long aftermath of her son's death. These poems return to small, precise moments-a visit, something said or not said-and stay there, letting their weight accumulate.There is no resolution here. Addiction is present but not explained; grief is not softened or shaped into meaning. Schalet's language is spare and exact. What emerges is a record of attention-a mother looking closely at what happened, and at what cannot be changed. In The Last Things I'll Remember, Randi Schalet writes from inside the long aftermath of her son's death. These poems return to small, precise moments-a visit, something said or not said-and stay there, letting their weight accumulate. There is no resolution here. The poems move through what remains: the habits of hope, the limits of what a parent can do, the ways a life narrows and continues. Addiction is present but not explained; grief is not softened or shaped into meaning. Schalet's language is spare and exact. What emerges is a record of attention-a mother looking closely at what happened, and at what cannot be changed.