Conversations with the Dragon and the Goblin in my Head
/The dragon said, I know all about
accumulated treasure: my silver and gold,
my sapphire and emerald
kept close to my sunless arrow-riddled body.
But why do you hide a box of old grape-sour corks
in the cavern of your desk drawer?
And I said to the dragon, They’re the corks of the wine bottles
my father emptied in his belly at nine p.m. on Saturdays
just before he drove me to my piano lesson
their bodies dyed ruby like the dull passage of time
or the sharp edges of memory.
And then the goblin, gutter junk clutched
in its gleeful magpie grip, plastic six pack rings
a chokehold around its throat, said,
Why do you keep a strand of your mother’s hair before the chemo
with a lock of her old synthetic wig
(the one they almost buried with her but then they didn’t)?
And I said to the goblin,
Indeed, why do we hoard the things that hurt us,
why is our grief so stained, yet so shiny still?