Contact Info:

Tim Mayo

P.O. Box 522

Brattleboro, VT 05302-0522

<tim-mayo@tim-mayo.net>

Contact Info:

Tim Mayo

P.O. Box 522

Brattleboro, VT 05302-0522

<tim-mayo@tim-mayo.net>

​​​Tim Mayo Poet  

​

Self-Storage


It’s not really the self that’s in there––
more like all the forgotten parts of your life 
you intended to revisit: 

the swimming trophy you crawled miles to win 
or the gold stars on a third grade calendar 
marking the few days 
of the one week in your life you behaved.

Then there’s those pants 
you think you’ll sweat yourself back into. 

They lie folded among the paste trinkets of time,
the jewels of your memory. 
                    
But what if you could . . .
just cinch up the whole girth of your life, 
then flatten your beliefs 
right out of your gut

(ironing out those wrinkles you keep stumbling over)

and fold your whole kit and caboodle of a body
(brain included with all its loose connections)

into some old snakeskin suitcase lying around
with its rusty lock and faulty hinges, then wait 

the long humble moment it takes 
to, at last, be carried away?

From Thesaurus of Separation (first published in San Pedro River Review​)