Life upturned.
Stuffed into boxes labelled
LIVING ROOM
in unfamiliar upper case
someone else’s hands wrap
all the artefacts of my previous self
in printless paper.
Box contents reveal odd juxtapositions –
a ball of paper blooms into: a key,
a rusty screw, a paperclip,
and 2 dead AA coppertops.
We explore our new return address
a coat stiffened into a stranger’s shape
shrug our shoulders
stretch the sleeves […]
They arrive like ghosts
in the early-morning darkness
a line of shadows stretches the length
of the sidewalk
from the corner to my driveway.
Their faces are invisible
behind toques, hoods, and scarves
clouded by fogs of their breath
either from the cold or from the cigarettes
that collect themselves on my lawn
like seeds, they appear when the snow melts into mud
rake them up […]
Both my children were bornin this working man’s townthe dead end of a seemingly endless roadthrough fir trees, some reduced to blackened stickswhere people are constantly arriving and departingI wonder about […]
