Photographs and Fortunes

A Poem

I saved it all up in my star bank —
the memories,
the photographs and fortunes.
I sliced scissors into a plastic cup,
and peeled it like an orange,
and nailed it to the corner
of the floorboards in my closet,
and left it there years
while I collected nights and noons.
They were life kind of days, those days,
days of pencils and soup on the stove,
days of static and soap.
We were life kind of people, those days,
people of phone calls and invitations,
people of knocks on doors.
Save it all,
save it all up.
Time runs,
like grandpa’s pancake batter
down the back of a spoon,
and I fall, moon into water,
on an evening in June.
I don’t quite drown;
I’ve always been good
at treading water but,
they were death kind of days, those days,
days of heat rash and politics,
of invisible money and rum.
We were death kind of people those days.
Save it all,
save it all up.
I saved it all up in my star bank:
the days and the day-ers,
the drinks and the dead of his face.
I pried it up
on summer’s longest night,
as though the things inside
might save me.
I took the photographs
and fortunes,
my life into my hands,
and packed them into boxes.
Brought my memories
to the consignment
and sold them for a fifty.
But it turns out treasure
is worth most to the one
who keeps it buried.
I spent the money on a chest,
got home, and found the star bank,
ripped and battered,
on the floor,
empty, for the first time
in a long time.
I placed it in the chest,
at the foot of my bed,
along with my receipt;
a photograph
and a fortune.

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