Tenderly I swathe cups in the @3Times@1, pack books and shoes, box thirteen years of life. Frame after frame comes down leaving its place. The wall outlines the emptiness and with these pictures I pack others. My son crawling under the dining-room table dragging a trail of Swee'pea nightgown to give a cockeyed grin round the tablecloth's edge. Days warm with the cicadas' shrill piercing through the geraniums' falling petals. Some I would discard. Nights filled with colic crying and no comfort, with waiting for a man who did not want a home. Nights spent in a coma of alcohol and music, trying to find the string in a maze of marriage. But though I attempt to keep them out of the boxes they slither in; like roaches they need little space and have lived here long. They are indigenous to my life, cannot be left behind with broken curtain rods. I hear their dry rustle in the crumpled leaves of the @3Times@1 as I box my life. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PSALM 136 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE OFF THE GROUND by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE A MOTHER'S LOVE by JAMES MONTGOMERY ON SICK LEAVE, 1916 by HAMILTON FISH ARMSTRONG VERITAS by BERNICE BROWN BETTMAN |