People can let their souls strain
until they feel like cotton seed
pinched and pulled apart
by a child’s fingers.
For a long time
it has been
hot rooms
with their walls speckled white
and dressers
that make clothes musty
like tired saluki sighthounds
wattled with balls of cancer
in their hips
and bills
sent from out of state
taped to the window
so that the ink fades.
I’ve taken my suitcase out of the closet.
A lot of things will go in the dumpster.
Until the Earth can cool around me
I’ll have to travel light.
Shower shoes,
bottles of shampoo
(nearly empty),
bent notebooks
spent spirals uncoiling
nine or ten good pages
still left in them
yellow foil
(from when?)
spackled with dried gel
and letters from December
some unsent
others written in anger
and only meant to be written
not to be read.
It’s always been less
about having these things
than having somewhere
clean
to put them.