Baggage

Unpacking the house,
mountains of still-taped boxes
suffocate closets
like old suitcases
forgotten at train stations,
displaced and hidden.

Replacing hidden
furniture inside the house,
I clean the station
grown stiff with boxes,
the musk of wet suitcases
seeps from the closets.

Shriving the closets,
disclosing what was hidden,
open suitcases
flood halls in the house
like trash tossed into boxes
while flushing stations.

Platform train stations
rattle like empty closets
after stark boxes
cease to be hidden,
scattered across the whole house
near lost suitcases.

Bemoaned suitcases
linger behind at stations;
repairing the house,
I restock closets.
Though no longer called hidden,
I restack boxes.

Marking the boxes—
porters name all suitcases:
worn tags fade, hidden
inside the stations’
lurking backrooms and closets—
I forsake the house.

Boxes in the house,
like suitcases in closets,
hidden in stations.