Redeem ticket

for the trunk you left
here thirty years ago
or the one left before that,
one of those with white
tags or stickers from Cunard
White Star Line, or one
that's much bigger inside
than outside, or one with
green tags that glow in
the basement crepuscule.
You have fifty tickets
in your pocket, you have
a porter's uniform with gold
loops on the shoulders.
Where does this stuff
come from? It's like it rose
off the 4th St. traffic, a
slightly more solid fume,
possibly toxic, and in any
case a bit tight in the chest.
The kingdom of the rat
goes on untroubled behind
almost a hundred years
of storage. The real porter's
got a ratty nose. Redeem
it now. Pick
the trunk you think you want
and tug it into daylight,
where it shines and shines.

Are there any stars?

Inside your fedora, where the poet
thought she left them, or elsewhere,
the medicine cabinet's invisible top
shelf, the box that used to hold
spare lightbulbs but that's been empty
for years, stuffed at the back of the
hall closet, the one that's full
of paper bags and candle stubs, or
maybe just scattered on the floor
of your car, under the back seat
where you never clean, even though
you could, it'd be so easy when you
already have the vacuum out anyway.
If you're carrying them on your
person you're braver than we thought.
They go everywhere. In the dark
hole under the basement stairs, yes,
the storage lockers by the washing
machines you pay a quarter to use
every Saturday, even in the lint
slots and ground into the concrete floor.
When it floods downstairs in springtime
and things go floating down the alley
on boats of their own making—an
upturned hat here, a bundt pan
there—don't be surprised they're there.
Don't look too close. Don't try
to get back things you think you own.

Emma Powell / An Elegy for the Honeybee