CLAUDIA EMERSON - Possessions

I sent you a list of what I wanted, and you boxed it up carelessly, as though for the backs of strangers, or for the fire, the way you might

have handled a dead woman's possessions—when you could no longer bear to touch them, the clothes still fragrant, worn, still that reminiscent

of the body. Or perhaps your lover packed the many boxes herself, released from secret into fury, that sick of the scent of me
in the bed, that wary of her face caught in my mirror—something I said I didn't want, where I would not see myself again.  

more poems by CLAUDIA EMERSON

AN INTERVIEW WITH CLAUDIA EMERSON