the last things

                                                   All that remains

Mindful to shut their back yard gate, I’d swept their basement

floor, re-checked their empty house for anything hidden, stored.

Nothing was there, nothing more.

Had I cleansed their home so well that even memories caught 

in corners by spiders’ webs held only shadows now? There must 

be a hoard of remnants

I hadn’t found before. I thought of a door I had not opened,

a crawl space where forgotten things might be. Switched on,

my silver flashlight was the key

to bits of history I’d hoped to find. On my belly, like my marble

days in dirt, I aimed my beam at a cache I’d overlooked. There

they were, Dad’s garden tools,

his screen wire trellis, his tomato cages, stakes and string and

a cushion he’d knelt on when he’d strung everything that needed

stringing.

How tiny was his garden then, when a dozen squash was his

bounty, when cucumbers came in twos or threes; Mom loved

to cook them then.

I harvested those memories as I grew grass on Dad’s tiny spot,

long fallow and unplanted. Although their house would soon be

sold, these house parts were left, intended.

                                    B.Koplen 10/27/13