Content warning:
It's already summer, and we’re getting rid
of clothes, getting ready to greet
the scorching days ahead;
making the place airy and less cluttered.
We’re living on the edge, restructuring the house,
getting rid of old furnitures,
obsolete machineries and funny gadgets.
A small table in the kitchen for two. Our world is
changing, our wardrobes mostly empty;
gone are the skinny jeans and the fancy moccasins—
the windchime and the trinkets.
When someone comes to visit and admire
our complete works of Yeats,
the peacock feather in the open thesaurus,
the mantle vase on a shelf, we say
take them. This is the most important
time of all, the age of dissipation,
knowing full well what we’re divesting is
like the fragrance of a burning incense stick
that lingers hours after it has been doused.
An ordinary Friday afternoon
when one of us stared
and the other one just laughed.
[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from an anonymous donor during our annual Kickstarter.]