Packing
greg kosmicki
Now we are once again packing boxes
full of our stuff
less stuff than the last time
less than the time before that
less than the time before that one too.
We actually reached our peak
of the pile of stuff
3 houses and 6 years ago
when I was UPSing and Debbie
was teaching school and the family,
all caught up in getting and spending
was growing apart.
I quit my job at UPS
it was a good job
by all the standard yardsticks
pay was good, benefits too
hours long and hard but only
Monday through Friday --
it was like a divorce, really,
the kids crying that first night
Mark especially, then Audrey came up
with her brave child's words
about new beginnings.
Debbie finished out the year
at school, we tried to sell the houses
but couldn't, I worked a little
part time delivering flowers for a floral company Valentine's Day
a few weeks teaching school at the Catholic High
(I told one class just wait'll you get out
into the real world and kid
shouted this is the real world
we're real students, these are real desks
this is a real school)
a part-time job installing satellite dishes
with a friend, taught a high school
religion class for kids
that went to public high
stayed home and began to learn to meditate
prayed a lot, read the bible
started looking for work in social services
in all the big cities of our country.
We got a nibble from Cabrini-Green
in Chicago, corresponded with a Dorothy Day House
in Des Moines, talked to Good News
down in Florida and got an interview
in Omaha. We were hired to live-in
as house parents at a group home
for mentally handicapped men
and three and a half years later
Debbie was promoted, so we moved
into this house in a tough part of town
where people come by in their cars
and throw glass bottles to break on the sidewalk,
neighbors have screaming matches at 3 in the morning
some nights are filled with repeated gunfire
things got stolen off our porch
until we learned to keep it locked
so then they broke into the house twice
con men drifted by like we had
a sign in the front yard advertising for them,
we had garter snakes
get into the house the last two summers
a bat flew into the house a few days ago,
(I was able to trap it in Mark's room
until the Humane Society guy
came by, put on his heavy leather
gloves, and caught the bat
just like a baseball
pitched to him from some other world,
took it out and I saw its weird
tiny face and heard it say clickclickclick)
each winter mice invade
to eat their last suppers of my poison,
pigeons have come to roost on our roof
on the south side, maybe because
I started to feed the sparrows,
cockroaches have come back this summer
after the initial spraying 3 years ago
kept them all killed and away,
the ropes for the counter-weights
in the windows are breaking
one by one, the basement leaked
last summer in heavy rains,
continued to do so this Summer, all our
books and papers and everything in storage got musty
and last summer my paintings
were covered with mildew
which broke my spirit,
the Gulf Ware came and went
and it burned me back inside
like an old tree stump
and when Clinton went in, to bomb,
they showed that little Iraqi girl on TV
while the commentator blustered
about our strength and power
like a bunch of two-bit bullies,
I went into the bathroom and cried
you might say I was depressed
you might say that I gave up all hope
in politicians ever again, or governments
you might say that I gave up all hope
in humanity in general
and it was only moments before the TV thing
came on about the Iraqi girl
who looked so much like my Audrey
whom they showed her father crying over
and talked about how tough we are
it was just before I read in a book
by Ralph Wiley how he was only
two blocks away from the motel
in Memphis, in his own home, when the word
of King's shooting swept over the city
like wildfire, then I saw the girl
then I went into the bathroom and wept
then I could not stop it anymore
Debbie came to ask me if I am OK
and I said I was and explained
but I really wasn't, I was clinically depressed,
I was working three jobs and not doing well
in any of them, I was presiding over a volunteer
peace organization and getting wasted,
and the house was just recovering
from an invasion of fleas
we had to spray to kill three times
wash all our linen three times
spray poison in our cars
over and over,
so I quit everything but my main job
and the family, but the house
continued to fall apart
and after the drain for the tub
plugged up to not unplug
finally, after having slowed down
and plugged up enough times
that I had to snake it out
at least once a month
they came and knocked a hole
in the wall going up the steps
a hole about 3 feet long
by a foot and a half high
and they cut out the rusted-shut pipe
and left the hole for our landlord
to repair, which they still haven't
and when the plumbers
were working on the pipes
they were getting electric shocks
off the ductwork, and they had to tear a hole
into the bathroom wall too
above the front of the tub
but the grout's all rotting in the tile anyway
and the tiles are falling down
so we finally decided damn it
we're going to get ourselves a house
so we did even though we had bad credit
explaining what wonderful people we really are
so now the house is cluttered with boxes
filled with whatever we think is worth saving
for the rest of our lives
