Here is the flotsam, the jetsam of life:
               the hair pins, paper clips, spools of silk thread,
                              slivers of star maps, a hammer, a mop.
Here is a violet grown yellow and pressed to the page.
Here is the cowl I will wear for my funeral.
Here is the dappled, dimpled storm of my grief.
Here, the razor’s edge of my kindness.
The tallow, dipped in sweet-scented honey
               molding the mask I’ve worn through this life.
Here too, the insistent cudgel of lust.
Here is the heart, the gore, the glistening
                              trust of my youth.
Here the wrenching
                              stream of remorse.
And yes, here too, is the tumbling, twirling,
                              bright lilt of my laughter.
Here it all is, forming the strandline
                              washed up on the shore.