_87. Bag Poem

When travelling I carry
my worldly life in a bag
I sling over my back. I like
that I need to feel its
heft daily, measure the
weight of what I need.
I admire it sometimes, pleased
at its self-contained certainty.
I enter the world as myself
and drag the bag behind me,
but that’s all there is.
Whatever doesn’t fit in the bag
I leave behind.

And so I become like the bag,
I hold things:
a liver, some stale air, temporarily
a chicken bone in my mouth.
Also my stomach, bladder and
welled-up anger;
the body is, after all, a kind
of bag of its own,
a leather sack full of smaller containers.
It moves its various contents
around and pretends it is more solid
than it is. Without my few bones
I would be a frightening blob
on the floor. But, thank God, I retain
that small amount of structure
and meander down the street
carrying my bag
passing a homeless woman with
her clutches of plastic containers
and full of what secrets and treasures,
what necessities of life?