Boxing

Boxing

This faded, cardboard orange box,

                        Swooshed and sturdy
            Like the overpriced athletic
 Shoes that it once housed,
            Two decades ago,
            Carries the flotsam of a life--
                        Or is it jetsam?
 
One thousand eighty cubic inches,
                        Still loosely packed,
            Give or take, with things:
A dusty, half-full bottle of
            Drakkar Noir, four-o'd report cards,
            Some 6-inch floppy discs-     
                        Post de-magnetized.
 
Long lost, the Polaroid camera,
                         Memorialized
            By the glossy sepia nudes of
Boyfriends and estrangements
            With smiling aging me's in various
            States of undress, inebriation and
                        Persistent youthfulness.
 
Once, I know, there was a gold chain
                        And crucifix--
            A gift from my grandmother
That I cannot find after picking through
            And shaking every item in
            The cardboard chest. I lost it, I curse,
                        Or someone took it.
 
A love poem I wrote but never gave,
                        Folded neatly,
                        Pen-ink smudged by time and tears.
A glossy New Yorker comic, clipped
                        By a dear friend
                        With whom I have since lost contact.
Keys of all shapes and sizes and alloys
                        Dozens of them,
                        To all the past places I've called home.
My first driver's license, a Libertarian voter registration,
                        Blockbuster card,
                        A Miami Dolphins lower bowl ticket stub.
A slow-ticking, gold-banded Timex watch that I shake, and
                        Slide on my wrist,
                        Once the nicest thing I owned.
 
I have moved this box with me, cramming and
                        Collecting,
            From the east coast to the panhandle
To lakesides to other states to the bayshore.
            From dorms to apartments to houses
            To mansions to condos.
                        From optimism to loss to hope.
 
Here, moving again, moved to a new space
                        Reconciling,
            Accounting for and taking inventory
Of stasis in constant change. Time in a box,
            Stacked in a new corner:
            Stacked in a different closet:             
                        Beneath another 'nother's stuff.

 

Accruing dust, dander, mold and yellowed edges,

                        More nostalgia,
            And now, another poem to be--undoubtedly--
Revisited again when this newest lease expires.
            This space, this time, is perfect.
            This box is only so big.
                        This box is only so big.