Junk Drawer

A small cardboard box arrived 

In the post yesterday

My old lover sent me

the contents of a junk drawer.

It was her joke,

one I took literal-

I picked through the assorted

jumble of desultory things

in search of meaning

I found silver paper clips

in various sizes

a pale rubber band 

Neon sticky notes

put aside as useful

A gum wrapper 

Devoid of its charge

I sniffed it confirming

Her affinity for cinnamon persisted.

A marble, perhaps escaped

from a Chinese Checkers game

left to console itself

with a perfectly good set 

of disposable chopsticks,

also put aside. Then

irritation bloomed like

black ink leaked into

the bottom of the box

by a ball point pen 

thought to be dried up

Why put upon me

the responsibility of deciding 

what must be saved 

and what must go-

Hadn’t we done that already?

But here it was 

a box of epithets typed 

in mysterious symbols

a pile of hurts  

drawn from the drawer 

destined to be

returned to sender 

Gingerly I picked through 

the loose bits of debris

much as I had done 

when deciding to stay 

or to leave my comedienne 

I plucked a familiar rectangle

Worn and curled

from the discordant mess

Upon inspection the Bandaid

was intact, still good 

for a small cut or scrape

But not nearly ample enough

To cover the opening and closing

wound in my chest

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

© Sandy Knight, 2021

Junk Drawer originally published in Issue 2 of Giving Room Mag. Many thanks to the editors and readers of this publication for embracing my work!