Yesterday I laid everything out on the carpet Books, kitchen things, With specific or none Arranged them sideways in a On the there, unmoored Out of context and considered it the whole picture, then everything individually Humming at the deadest pace imaginable One object, another, and then the next And I wondered they meant there If they anything still
notes, supplies, A book you in the desert, Wildflowers'. Pictures vacations, parties, Kitschy gifts we from rest stops On that trip out West Objects, itself And memory
All of it laid out In the room The living The hallway, and the basement, and the From room we called the office But never In the laid out there on the floor On the carpet, out of
And I sat for hours
Today I moved from the floor To the in the dining room each thing carefully without reason Or at least without one I or could describe There, on the table, together and when I was I stepped back I what I had made Keepsakes, pictures, Ordinary objects all collected
A
And I thought of ones on or set by gravestones All the things you see there but understand But bring a remembered thing back vividly Invoke someone's when there together In that in that way out of context And I I had to take it down Before anybody saw Tomorrow I to put them all somewhere things In Side of the Attic All these things that push and pull me through To places I was, places I might have gone, I ended up going
Ticket from one thing or another A personalized coffee mug neither name nor mine cards and old phones A from an old calendar I bought once At a store and insisted on hanging That of the moon print Old of mine
Put in boxes
And I sat for hours In the living first Then in the dining things around Picking up and seeing where they took me To place in history moment on our timeline Where we were, where I was, I thought we'd end up In house or on the highway Driving somewhere Christmas In the desert or else
And I put them in