Unpacking to Pack Again

Here are scraps of paper from Guatemala
with phone numbers for names like Juevez and Pollo
vague directions to Rainbow
the blog of a woman named Paz

These striking feathers were
collected from the scene of a bloodbath
at the peak
Flashbacks of screaming at my lover
all along mountain ridges
trails winding through El Salvador

Some seashells we picked up on
the beaches of the Pacific, careful
collections on the garita steps
Feasting on fried fish and coconuts, playing
with neighbour kids
Back when we thought that
maybe
we could do something good

And here, my trusty old titanium spork
The dolphin flashlight given to me by the benevolent junkie whose
sewage, rubbish, and rusted tin yard
we camped in for two weeks amongst
barefoot children and whooshing crack pipes
in decimated Honduras, the ravaged Caribbean
an ocean of rage and crisis rolling weakly out the colonized Atlantic
getting eternally lost at sea

And oh my god, here
A Google Maps printout of downtown here
from when I didn't know my way around yet, and
the I-just-re-entered-the-country-after-so-long-that-I-have-no-valid-papers to-do list that
I realize I still haven't fully checked off

Moved three times in three months, not
counting the shiftless drifting for 15 before, all
borne more out of
last-ditch attempts at self-preservation than
by personal choice
to tell the truth

and it's with a heavy heart I trace
through this inane clutter of relics
belated tears for hastily
departed former chapters
a jagged emptiness, a searing grief, kitsch tokens of
loss and pain and stirring
old aches
unpacked
at last
just to pack again

....Here's to hope.