I get the garage cleaned out and keep it that way,
not load it up with boxes that delivered stuff
important in the moment to my door? If I
get the back bedroom tidy of its full boxes
and bags of gifts and books and whatnot
so someone could actually walk on

Grandma’s pink oriental rug that, years ago,
I de-fringed, much of the fringe having
pulled out decades earlier? If I remember
how I came to acquire the pink rug—
was it Grandma’s, or do I just imagine
that it was?

If I’m able to clear out so much
of what I’ve acquired in six-and-a-half
decades that my house looks like Sonya’s
mostly empty one across the street before
her mind drifted away from her and she
went into care? If this place I consider mine
was easily turned over to someone who’d
sell it for nine time more than he and I
paid for it in the previous century?

What if I could plan it just right so that
I’d leave the place, if not squeaky clean,
less cluttered than it is now? As spare
as a zen meditation space or the plain
church I once saw in a Hawaiian jungle
holding only a rough koa wood altar,
empty candleholders and four small
pews. If we could simplify our existences,
lighten our load just before we make
the leap to hyperspace, or whatever
form of heaven we imagine?

Me, I’m aiming for a celestial library
with soft chairs for sitting, every
book imaginable for reading,
God (or whatever her name turns
out to be) the eternal librarian,
humming over my shoulder,

Have you read this one, honey?
I think you’ll love it.