Stacked up like boxes,
every person I’ve ever met
every experience I’ve ever had
everything I’ve ever bought,
I stack up like boxes
in the clean garage of my life,
one upon another,
row upon row.

Every nostalgia is clearly marked
with the felt pen of remembrance,
written in big black letters
on their ends,
row upon row.

And when I walk down their aisles,
I touch the cardboard containers
like a physician healing himself,
absorbing the mists of the past
like sprayed medicine,
breathing in deeply the fumes
of my own life,
row upon row.

But boxes are not a hospital,
and the afflictions of the now
are stronger than faint whiffs
of ancient perfume,
leaving me standing among my boxes
still alone,
looking down the corridors of time,
row upon row.

Physical Borg
10-9-1985