11-18-2022, 09:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-18-2022, 09:16 PM by RiverNotch.)
Heartaches
If you leave your storage unit
unpaid, she pays for it
and claims all that's behind the door,
of course. She runs no charity
nor no business, she gives away
most of what she finds
to Goodwill, keeping for herself
only papers, photos, and the occasional
trophy or token clearly labeled,
the jar with "John's First Tooth"
or the ribbon that went "Third Prize
Barbecue, Waco, '72".
She gives them a week, then at her spot
on the playa, she builds for them
a pyramid of sticks
and kerosene. "Well?"
she asks the young
hikers taking indignant
selfies before the pyre.
"It's just a burning memory."
If you leave your storage unit
unpaid, she pays for it
and claims all that's behind the door,
of course. She runs no charity
nor no business, she gives away
most of what she finds
to Goodwill, keeping for herself
only papers, photos, and the occasional
trophy or token clearly labeled,
the jar with "John's First Tooth"
or the ribbon that went "Third Prize
Barbecue, Waco, '72".
She gives them a week, then at her spot
on the playa, she builds for them
a pyramid of sticks
and kerosene. "Well?"
she asks the young
hikers taking indignant
selfies before the pyre.
"It's just a burning memory."

