By Barbara A Meier
--
The end table bit me back,
fell into pieces,
while the scratch
won’t stop bleeding.
My life moving on,
until Goodwill can bring out the furniture I need,
and the ones I can move.
I ache at the thought.
I sit in my lazy boy throne of tweedy orangeness,
surrounded once again by the offscourings of my life,
in piles of black plastic garbage bags,
a suitcase with a broken wheel,
and card board boxes missing lids.
With no place to put them,
I work instead on placing pieces of the puzzle,
treasures of turquoise, green malachite, lapis blue, and red carnelian,
surrounded by beds gilded with gold,
a throne of silver and gold foil, alabaster canopic jars,
and chests inlaid with ivory,
Just think:
our brains
being drained through our noses,
our liver and lungs preserved in canoptic jars,
our thoughts preserved in funerary vases,
coated in salt and spices, watching
races across the wall, leaving snakes
and crocodiles in a tangle with hippos and baboons.
The statue of Anubis protecting us from our grave robbers.
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