Swedish Death Cleaning

walking sand dunes to my standing stone -

footprints blown with the wind -

stripping silks

to drift on air,

pulled from a hungry clown's sleeves…

 

with five decades past, I am…

 

piling papers to shred,

leaving manageable slices of grief

for others,

pertinent details recorded

in timely envelopes

 

photographs are filed,

suspects fitted

in neat shoe-sized allotments,

sorting memory,

ones to forget, ones to keep -

mining evidence

 

whittling the contents of drawers -

trinkets and satins,

coin and vice -

a dull testament to stars

set inside

lined cedar boxes

 

dredging closets, long ignored,

weighed down with

containers kept on high shelves,

safely lidded against

dust and whispers

 

beads and crystals hang on hooks,

catching light in smooth stone eyes;

a cradle for our fondest illusion

swung inside

cleavage,

or a timepiece vest

  

knick-knack figures stand in clay,

glass, wood �" carved, blown,

and chiseled -  year by year,

an amassed statuary empire

with frozen eyes

housed in lighted china cabinets

decked out at dinner

with knives

 

(I try to diminish them, reduce their numbers,

the future should not be made to carry this…)

 

stacking books,

books that rise to the ceiling,

pages earmarked

for tomorrow

 

I will hoard the few,

hold them to my face

like perfume…

 

I will try to fit the rest

inside this box