2001/walkout

I feel the need
to walk out of
the life I have
lived,
like stepping
out of a dress
left lying
on the floor
when I leave
the room.

Brush it off
like dust,
without scars
and wounds,
and memories
that ambush
me in the button
box.

I need to be free
and clean
of what has been
the past.

I’ve pasted it
all in albums
and scrapbooks,
vowed to make
it current
or let it go,
surrendering the
broken pieces
of my mother’s
pineapple-upside-
down cake plate
to the ground of
art,
her kit cat clock,
its eyes bulging,
head sprung loose
and hanging
from its torso.

There’s little left,
from childhood,
the sixth-grade paper
I edited,
which my friend sent.
A high school annual.
All the rest gone
up in flames
when my sister’s
house burned
down.

There’s almost
no sign I
was the one
who lived
my life,
a rare photo
that someone
outside the family
took.

11/3/01