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.