Chest Without A Name

I keep my verse in a chest of drawers
each one so very different

Some words for summer, some for winter
and some then most intemperate

I keep the best one’s locked away
for those times when you’re around

To dress each phrase in sunlit fire
with silks and linens found

I fold each poem nice and neat
stacked end to end they lay

To sit and wait, my breath exhaled
until their chosen day

There’s one drawer open every night
in case my dreams conspire

The thickest warmest woolen clads
to wrap the image dire

One day I’ll will this chest of drawers
to my first born oldest son

And hope he wears each line as his
and lets the meanings run

And then to his son, he’ll pass on
when fate calls out his name

The drawers more full than when I left
—this chest without a name

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)