THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs:
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"