Boxes

A poem about moving... again.

My real, unedited kitchen table as I post this…

Boxes

Once again, I collect myself.

I excavate last year's boxes from beneath

my bed, tape them back into shape.

Discard what's cracked or stained.

Pass on what never fit quite right.

Diminish myself into acceptable amounts

of mugs and books.

I go where I know nobody yet.

I must be light enough to lift.

I leave the heavy stuff in a friend's basement.

"Not again!" she says. We sing,

"Hello darkness my old friend."

Will I reveal the odd bits of myself:

owl statue, monkey lamp,

too-slow cuckoo clock?

Even to me I make no sense:

one drawer contains a fox tail, hatpin,

silver dollar, bird call, old lace,

sealing wax.

What can I label such a box?

I fantasize a garden

I can plant in every year.

A room where all the walls

are thick with books,

the shelves nailed in.

But for now I live

unmoored, tip-toed

on earth.

Where will I pack my little crucifix,

now taken down and dwarfed

by these ramshackle bits of me?

You will not mind this journey

to another place, hidden in the dark.

Open-armed, you bear the weight

of all I am and have and do not know

I am, all I will unpack

and all that will remain

hidden with you.