Objects in Space

Yesterday alone I laid everything out on the carpet Books, kitchen things, objects with specific purpose or none Arranged them sideways in a grid on the floor there unmoored Out of context and then considered it First the whole picture, then everything individually Humming along at the deadest pace imaginable One object then another and then the next And I wondered what they meant there If they meant anything still Found notes Camping supplies A book you bought in the desert "Identifying Wildflowers" Pictures from vacations From parties Kitschy gifts we bought from rest stops On that road trip out West Objects Everything itself And then memory All of it laid out there From the dining room The living room The hallway and the basement and the kitchen From that room we called the office But never used Even the bathroom Everything laid out there on the floor on the carpet out of context And I sat there for hours Today I moved everything from the floor to the table in the dining room Placed each thing carefully without reason or at least without one I understood or could describe There on the table together and when I was done and stepped back I realized what I had made Keepsakes Pictures Letters Ordinary objects all collected there A memorial And I thought of ones on highways or set by gravestones All the things you see there but don't understand but still bring a remembered thing back vividly Invoke someone's reality when there together in that place in that way out of context And I knew I had to take it down before anybody else saw Tomorrow I plan to put them all somewhere Those things In boxes Side of the road Attic maybe All these things that push and pull me through history To places I once was, places I might've gone, places I ended up going Postcards Ticket stubs from one thing or another A personalized coffee mug neither your name nor mine Phone cards and old phones A page from an old calendar I bought once at a thrift store and insisted on hanging That cycles of the moon print Photos Old boots of mine Put them in boxes And I sat there for hours In the living room first Then in the dining room Moving things around Picking things up and seeing where they took me To what place in history What moment on our timeline Where we were, where I was, where I thought we'd end up In this house or on the highway Driving somewhere near Christmas In the desert or anywhere else And I put them in boxes