How Your Mind Worked

4/15/08

HOW YOUR MIND WORKED

For two and one quarter years
ever since your death
I have been unable to move, to change,
to alter the various and sundry small
containers, mostly jelly jars or such like,
placed haphazardly in my new home; the home I fled to
after your death.


These jars housed your collections of the miscellaneous.
The extra screw left over from a repair. The straight
pin taken off some doll or child’s toy in your office.
The many buttons that fell off pants or blouses grown
too tight, never sewn back, but kept with good intentions.
The glob of molding clay which you would absently knead
between your fingers to help your anxiety. A small spring,
not to hold the pen refill, no, fatter and shorter than that, of
some mysterious origin. The odd shaped, factory molded
rubbery piece that once upon a time fit between some electronic part.
And of course the push pins, thumb tacks, paperclips, and the
half inch of staples which didn’t fit when a new row of them got replaced.

These jars and their contents became almost sacred to me.
I would look at them and think I knew how your mind worked.
Think I could see you drop one or another of these objects, absently,
to be housed till the day you would retrieve it. Important enough to
not toss; rather, add to life’s detritus.
Invariably, the objects would be forgotten.
The jelly jars would half fill, and new ones would be started.

Frequently, since your death, I would pick up the screw or plastic molded piece and
kiss it, knowing that your hand, your energy, your life once held this thing.

Today, I emptied one jar.
I undid your accumulation of insignificance, so significant to me.
I was terribly conscious of what I did.
I have enough jars left to remind me of how I think I knew how your mind worked.