Empty Nest

I hauled everything out to the curb. Loaded it up in black plastic bags and left it for the garbage man. The beer bottles I found under his bed. The coke can with spent cigarette butts in the closet. The borrowed clothes never returned, I didn’t know who they belonged to…and the styles have changed, anyway. I chucked the weight set into the woods…too heavy for the trash, and I’m too tired to bury them in this cemetery I call a yard.

And then I sat down and cried.


A prom picture, marred by a beer bottle ring , was stuck to the entertainment center you hauled home from the trash. I spent 15 minutes peeling it off the glass shelf, before I pitched the found five -shelf treasure and gently buried the picture in my top dresser drawer. A trophy, your engraved name missing, toppled sideways, stood lonely in the corner of the room. What piece of furniture did you take with you, that left this plastic soldier exposed? I dusted it off, and laid it to rest in the kitchen cabinet. Receipts for things I never knew you owned, were smeared onto the vacant floor. Every now and then, pennies, nickels, quarters…lazily tossed amidst them.

I opened the windows and let the fresh air in. Noticed that even in your going, you were coming, The screen was propped just so. I’ll miss you . Precious child of mine.

Wings
I pray they are mighty