Baggage

November 12, 2013

The lady who rents,

Space 560C -,

That’s the space next to mine,

At the North Miami,

Rent-a-Space,

Unloads her stuff,

From a Toyota truck,

One that has,

A crushed-right-front fender,

And a missing end gate,

She tells me that she borrowed

The truck from her brother,

To haul her shit up,

From Florida City,

Now, she’s sweating in,

One hundred sixty seven degree,

July heat,

That boils in from the Everglades.

She swears effortlessly,

f-this, and f-that,

She lugs out boxes,

Like a longshoreman,

Jesus saves, reads the tattoo,

On her right arm,

Jerod R.I.P. on her left arm.

I ask her if I can help,

But she says no,

It’s just a box of books,

Crap she can’t bear to part with,

From her first marriage to,

The fucked up history teacher,

And I say that I have books too,

And she says books are not really,

Important after the fact,

After you’ve read them all,

They’re all the same.

She says that leaning on the hood,

Of the Toyota – smoking,

“Harmonicas and magic wands”

Reads the next box,

“Toddler to 2  yr” reads another,

“Letters from J — People mag,”

“crap from Jacksonville house”

“shit from Pop”

I help her carry a heavy box:

“pensacola dishes”,

Should’ve thrown these out in 1986 she says.