Your cardboard box is an Ark
You take one of each: one book. One frame.
One door. One shoe.
You wrap them up safely: the cups. The hearts.
Everything goes down in newspaper scraps
like yesterday’s tomorrow.
You make every box a guardian of secrets.
A treasure unburied. A dream clouded in dust,
then unveiled.
All the old dedications, crinkled photographs,
they speak of love, love, love, then ask:
Why are you leaving? Did you not like it here?
When Noah told them, come, to my Ark,
don’t you think they went asking?
It was a new shore and new life
and they did not want to leave home.
If you are restless, think of the flood. Think of
the species: one lout. One pen. One light. One key.
You toss them into the boat so your
old life won’t drown. All new shores are hopes,
but past shores are hands.
A cardboard fleet is setting out.
Their sails no bigger than curtains. Noah commands
a sea of memories to divide, make way – or was that Moses? –
and all things move through,
possibly breaking, but most likely not.
Your box is an Ark. You say: Come, come.
I’m sorry we have to go, but it’s time.