Moving Children

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Boxes and dust and questions.
That drawer full of miscellany ignored with determination
until unceremoniously dumped in a box at the last.

Every adult needs a drawer of easily accessible guilt.
Where to put it in the new house?

How do you pack a still-damp shower curtain anyway?
Why have I held on to this and not that and
where the heck did I pack my skillet?

Being taught how much wrapping paper is cushioning enough;
learning that that was not enough.

Leaving always has a being left.
Leaving is adventure.

Except-
Parenting is all about being left.
But there's joy there in the cascading crescendo of being left.
It starts with spoons held in chubby fists,
and ends... when they have a family confab and take your driver's license away.

Part of that joy?
Their junk drawer of remonstrances calls only to them,
and the damp shower curtain?

They"ll learn to leave it behind.



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