They say it is only your hoarding instinct, but the security camera’s evidence is clear – night after night you pile the junk in his work shed onto a tray – a chopstick, a clothes pin, a plastic cup and saucer. That screwdriver probably weighs as much as you do. Across the pond, in the dark shed of my Midwest flat, I envy you your industry. Night comes at five p.m. here. I stream The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning while doing my dishes, just for the company, for a little bit of energy to fight back another COVID winter, another bout of fascism, the creep of arthritis in my joints. But the relentless push toward entropy does not defeat you. Outside are the owl and the barn cat. Your eyes are tiny headlights, your tail is whipping the place into shape.
Paula Reed Nancarrow’s poems have recently appeared in Verse Daily, Poetry South, FRIGG, Ibbetson Street Magazine, and The Southern Review. She has called six states home, and now lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Find her online at paulareednancarrow.com.