WHAT I FOUND WHEN I WAS CLEANING MY DESK
The desk is in the living room, a gift from Aunt Marion,
one of Gramma Lily's 11 siblings, Uncle Max had fled to Panama
and became a fireman, tired of his father's beatings
I mopped my brow with one of those moist towellets
at least 15 years old, and keys good lord, keys stuffed
inside a squeaky drawer that could not be thrown away
or used either
Two fine Nikon cameras
A chipped custard cup of pale green
Meanwhile I'm commanding Alexa to play
Bon Jovi, Dion and the Belmonts, the
Easter Oratorio and creating a pile
on the carpet for all to be tossed into
the Yellow Plastic Bin though old and dark
rubber bands go into the trash container
I squish an ant in my fingers and refuse to think
of their social intelligence and The Ant Farm we had
as kids and that basin of Mom's where I collected
salamanders from the trickle on the crick
but they all escaped during the night
My voting card, colors rubbed off with time
What's that sound? A recording of the making
of Mustang Sally my sister Ellen is listening to
upstairs.
Ride Sally Ride!
Where's that big yellow moon?
It makes not a sound I can hear
but at Cape Canaveral they wore
earplugs and a few early astronauts
lost their lives, How I mourned for
Christa McAuliffe and poetated about her
and her big cumbersome gloves she burned
up in, like a regular Jeanne d'Arc played by
what's her name who killed herself
The manic depressives among us are tempted
but usually end up saving ourselves, I still
miss Roberto and Jimmy who did himself in
with aspirin, jes trying to make hisself feel better
Goodbye Moon, wrote Margaret Wise Brown
and she was. She was.
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