ANTHOLOGY

My aim is to collect every thing

for this scrapbook. To cram

remnants of my movements

between its paper cover

and cardboard back. To feed it

the litter of my days

as if it were some hungry,

shelf-dwelling animal, eager

to masticate my present

and digest it as a past.

To anthologise the trivialities –

the tickets, the receipts, the reminders –

to plant them and wait for

their journeys, their purchases, their events

to grow into a leafy, memorial splendour.

To stand volumes, great libraries

of my fallen leaves and listen

to the silent regiment.

To one day feel the thrill,

its horror and elation in my blood’s tide

as I let go of one of those leaves,

putting a gaping uncertainty

between the pages.