December 27, 2011

poem for unfinished business

The sticky, the oily, the irreconcilable. Shelves dusty from disuse,
yet bearing so much weight the house feels pulled under. What has gone
sour still puckering the mouth in memory. The body shaken loose
from its moorings despite persistent reminders for stillness, and the mind whirring on
and on about a collection of stories broken down the spine. And so, a ceremony
is undertaken, a fire built to create a semblance of farewell, the last
bits of unease coiled into strips of paper and thrown in. I’d like to say
this will do it, close the book for good, but really, what will make the past a past
is to tell it I am grateful for what it gave, a map from which to chart the better trip.
To hold the pain in tenderness is to release its grip.