-Change of address-

Moving day and everything I can fit in my hands,

Things unused or not even considered for years,

Are pondered like the bust of Homer;
Each item seems to be beginning.

Instruction pamphlet

On how to operate a toaster:
Do not place metal objects
Into toast slots. 

Assortment of ballpoints to test
Across the back of an envelope.
Cufflinks.
Incidentals gathered in my hands

And I'm walking the rooms

Like a weary old man incapable of realizing

The time of departure;—what to treasure,
What to be disposed of.

Twist-ties and the necessary coffee can filled with them.

Empty any drawer in the house of its silverware or socks;—

There, the broken fragments of metals and plastics

Rest like the dead, the bottom-dwellers of the dusty dressers.

I remember these things from the torrid decisions
Of the last act of moving;—

Putting them in cans, in the jars and boxes;
Into the bed of the drawers just in case.

This time it’ll be different.

This time I think I’m going to need that stuff someday.

There sits my 96 year old mother.

She remembers little of anything.

There sits the early years recalled when the household

Needed everything of her.

Now this day of moving and she’s in need

Of everything from me.

This snow-globe evaporating.

This falling ornament.

                                        May 4, 2012