because she never has enough
THINGS
she never has enough
boxes, buckets, binders to
PUT THEM IN
saving even these up
collapsed, flattened,
or left frothing in styrofoam madness
one day will squirrel away
clothes, bibles, a bread maker
for the Winter to come
throwing it out is tantamount to
a resignation to
wastefulness, everything can prove
useful
You'll see!
as she triumphantly paraded her
gift-wrapped apple
elevated from our world of dusty mothballs,
rusty cobwebs,
sun-bleached shadows
my hunger showed, somehow, though
baby blue rubber-maid mouthes
organized her life,
she would never collect time,
harvest memories, reclaim space
consigned to the fire of the past
smokeless, floating,
gone

(already,
some lids have
snapped shut
forever)

death unpacks each,
each parcel, packaged mystery
before pained eyes, lifts
one
by one
the decision to
keep, save, hide, hoard,
dangled precariously just
out of reach of translucent hands
now invisible, stretching
and stretching to
catch
the glass tears
of ghosts, but they
slip through fingers,
falling deep,
deep, deeper into shattering darkness