Yesterday I emptied drawers and boxes,
my effort at discarding the pieces of you
that littered my life.

Some ticket stubs from concerts last summer,
a hotel receipt from a weekend getaway,
merely paper and ink for the garbage collectors.

Other pages, even less significant, were tossed,
some yellowed, others wrinkled and stained,
none earned salvation from destruction.

Their new destination, a landfill,
one day to be reclaimed as the foundation
for another couple’s home.

I shed no tears as I labored at my task.
It was housework, a single entry
on my new life’s To Do list.

But as I neared the end of the pile,
exhausted from the efforts at life’s reorganization
I uncovered my breaking point.

The pink envelope crouched in wait,
stuck between an old telephone bill
and a letter from your father.

You had drawn a heart on its front,
enclosing your nickname for me
within its curved boundaries.

It once held a card from you to me
Valentines or anniversary,
the date unimportant.

It was you, loving me, with all the
exuberance of a schoolboy
carving his sweetheart’s name on a tree,

with the tenderness of the elderly couple
who still hold hands
as they share a park bench,

with the passion of lovers
who discover the meaning of life
in each others arms.

I cried until the ink ran,
turning the heart to streaks
and the envelope to waste.

The trash collectors came today.