Baggage

Poem of the Month

This a poem I wrote many years ago when I first started writing poetry. I haven’t visited it in some time. Enjoy!

Baggage

What would you carry with you?

How much weight would you hoist off the strap

onto your soft frayed shoulder

as you swim through the haze of your day

with your full and crafty tote?

What provisions would you gather

under the chapped mouth of the leather:

candies, needles, cigarettes?

Cold solid things you’d know by feel,

reachable and assuring.

What are you willing to lose;

to let sink to the bottom, forgotten

into the deep wrinkled floor?

What burdens would you let that abyss

of worn satin swallow?

And what would you tuck away

in the place of honor, that one-off

disfigured, awkward pocket

where you stash your favorite secret

like a stale and stolen butterscotch?

Or are you simply willing

to fall out into the open world

with no keys, no mints, no stamps,

not a saltine to your name

lacking chapstick, phone and change?

Would you just walk, and trust

that doors would fling open before you,

that the rain would rinse your breath,

that ravens would bring your messages,

that ripe vines would leap at you,

dropping their medicine fruit?

And that all you needed would be there

for the clean, easy taking--

you could go free, practically naked,

bagless and loved and wild.

—Kristen McHenry