I’ve lived my life as if I were my wife
packing for a trip—I’ll need this and that
and I can’t possibly do without that!


But now I’m about
what can be done without.
I just need a thin valise.


There’s no place on earth
where I can’t unpack in a flash
down to a final spark of consciousness.


No place where I can’t enter
the joyless rapture
of almost remembering


I’ll need this and I’ll need that,
hoping to weigh less than silence,
lighter than light.

From The Memory of Water, published by New Issues Press. Copyright © 2011 by Jack Myers. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.