our lives in boxes

cleaning out
the basement
you get stuck
for an hour
leafing through a box
of old letters,
photos and poems
you wrote in a workshop
when you were in
your twenties,
your son's age now.
slowly you turn
each picture over,
with a few you
remember the place,
the time,
exactly where you were
and with who,
while others
seem like a mystery
without any clues,
the poetry
is bad. but you
always think it's bad
even when it's
praised as gold.
the letters, still
in envelopes with post
marks from the various
places your
infatuations, or loves
had gone. it's hard
to throw away
such things you
think, stretching
a fresh piece of tape
along the top
of the cardboard flap,
strange how so much
of our lives
eventually finds
its way into boxes
in the basement.