Boxes

Contributor: Georgette F. Miller

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Tear
Yank the hanging drapes aside
Light pouring over everything
Blinding
Full of dust.

Shelves and shelves
Grandpa's books
Brown and blue and white
Spines showing
Wrinkled at tops and bottoms.

One by one
We box his life
We box his legacy
We box all that he loved
We box all that he was
And cry,
Cry with every box we set on the street
Cry
When we lower the box
He's packed so tightly in
When we lower the box
Commit him at last
To God
To the dirt
To that
From which all that we are
Is ultimately only borrowed.


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