A few yards of vinyl records, well thumbed,
Under the cistern that sometimes overflows over the front door in London,
The drips giving visitors Legionnaires’ disease. Books in four countries,
The same books. No turntable. None of this is a boast.
Boots, sweaters, jeans, from pre-designer days.
Papers, birth certificate, dead passports, their corners docked,
My degree, my decree.
Unopened letters from my mother.
Three sets of taxes, old boarding passes,
Coins, bundled stationery envelopes that are stuck down or won’t stick.
The whatever world of passwords, streaming, and clouds—
Oh, streams and clouds by.
A trunk holding a suitcase holding a holdall,
The travel equivalent of the turducken,
Motheaten to buggery.
Children’s clothes, Oshkosh, never worn.
Two paintings by a man called Smith, American in Paris, or Brit in…
