I collect Things

I collect things.
Dreams in a jar, old
soap in the sunlight.

Leftover buttons from
plaid shirts i
used to wear when
I was young.

Fingers now riddled
with arthritis comb
thru junk
drawers.

Pictures of my children.
Babies are always good
before school lures them
to the trenches.  I collect
paintings from preschool
and gifts from museum
shops. Little owls from

when I collected owls.

I collected chickens.
I tried to make it up to
you, your mother's cabbage
and chicken dinner.

I collect the visits to
Door County.  The
shops we entered,
the breakfast we
drove 4 hours to
accomplish.

You wore your last smile
like a yellow slash.  I
collected the sound
you made, the whisper of
dying. The last soft
skin call cry.

I collect the days you
never left me.  The rolled
up newspapers of
the years
you never read.

I collect the lost years
we, to each other,
in rolled up brown
suede corners.


Caroline Shank