Jewelry, small containers,
knick-knackeroo  –
we’re getting down to the small stuff
and we’re so far from through

I wonder, will we ever
open this  box again?
Will we ever want to use these things,
and if so, when?

These tracks, the leavings
of the course of our lives  –
perhaps that’s all they are
and we could leave them behind
like footsteps in the sand
to simply disappear –
Why should it matter what becomes of them,
why give them all this care?
And yet I keep on packing up the boxes

And I think: if I don’t free myself
then something else will –
this is something that I know for sure is true,
but this picture of my daughter in the frame she made –
that’s coming with us,
and this other stuff will, too.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 18, 2022