And at the end of the day
we felt we knew him less.
We’d started with objects
and foibles gathering dust.
The Oriental Lady with chipped fingers.
The Empire Globe fallen on its axis.
The Bronze Monkeys among more monkeys.
The Wooden Boxes with their cacophony of cufflinks.
The photos of smiling women.
The pens and prescriptions, filled and unfilled.
The eyeglass cases housing collar stays.
The glowing, gushing letters.
With fresh purpose we mined
the pockets, the pocketed.
Matchbooks,
dinner mints,
crumpled tissues,
bus transfers,
phone numbers,
divorce decrees,
verboten photos,
envelopes fat with cash.
Pocket vaults,
tucked enough to harbor
ex-wives, army lives,
unsavory alliances.
But there was no
chamber lost enough
for traces of us.
His children.
–
‘Scavenger Hunt’ (Rattle, #17, Summer 2002)