Sifting in the Afternoon

a bedside table and an ashtray and an antique

chair; a mattress and a coffee mug;

an unwashed cotton blanket and a rug

my mother used to own. I used to have

a phone. I used to have another

room, a bigger broom, a wetter sponge.

I used to water my bouquet

of paper clips and empty pens, of things

I thought I’d want to say if given chance;

but now, to live, to sit somehow, to watch

a particle of thought dote on the dust

and dwindle in a little grid of shadow

on the sunset’s patchy rust seems like enough.