DOWNSIZING
So little of this furniture
has any meaning beside comfort.
It can be donated,
along with the clothes
we haven’t worn in years.
And do we really need
all these documents.
There’s such a thing
as the statute of limitations.
That rule gets all excited
when it spies an attic.
So tax returns from twenty years ago
can feed the shredder.
Along with report cards,
job reviews, receipts for items
long since sent to the dumpster.
Even the photographs can be thinned.
Too bad the ones posing
can’t be thinned also.
And there’s so many letters.
So many postcards.
It’s like sending memory’s work offshore.
We’re stuck with the family heirlooms
like we’re stuck with the family.
But ceramic dogs, crystal angels,
can’t even get nostalgia right.
I say green-bag them.
We’re moving into a condo.
Much fewer inanimate objects.
We’ll have to fill their roles.
About the Author: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dunes Review, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review and failbetter.
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Photo Credit: OCULUS WINDOW, ROUND-ARCHED HALF-WINDOW, ROUND-ARCHED CASEMENT WINDOW, AND LOW, ROUND-ARCHED DOOR, THIRD FLOOR, TOWER – Rose Hill, Woods Road, Tivoli, Dutchess County, NY Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 