In Another Drawer

Of my bedside table

lie a broken fish, and the dinosaur

worm my child made me, now in two halves,

my father’s old iPhone, he’s been dead

since two thousand sixteen,

a tiny Lego of the Sydney Opera house.

What to do with these things?

Nothing, I suppose, like the small tin

in another drawer, in the top of an old dresser

filled with concert ticket stubs

from the seventies and eighties.

Who cares?

What are they good for?

Do I only have the memories

of the Doobie Brothers or Jimmy or Hank Jr.,

because of them? Surely not.

Will my children throw them away

when I am gone? I suppose.

Is my life a collection of old torn

paper and broken ceramics?

Could it be anything else?

Maybe a poem or two, maybe

they will go in the garbage

with the broken fish, but for today,

I have all my treasures

hoarded like a greedy king of junk.