Moving On

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.