In the end, you have no suitcase.
The ticket is one-way only, very expensive, caro, precious.
You arrive on the side of a hill which has dared to assert its contours
into the life of endless blue sky
and you sit next to the little shed with its rusted tools,
find the rabbit carcass drying in a gorge of light.
You’ve left home with instructions to love
your body, your ankles crumbling beneath you.
Your suitcase, navy blue, like all the others
is carefully zippered around the loves of your heart,
your neck of arteries and veins folded neatly over your pants and scarves
the ones with the silver thread flowers
and the ones with the outlines of petroglyphs
the freckled bowl you bought somewhere
and nestled into the fabric with your spotted hands.
In the end, you will dream of packing your suitcase.
You will ask someone you love to get it down from the attic
even though you have no attic
and you did not know that you could feel so much love
for a stained undershirt and a chipped necklace
or your own blood warming in the dark.
Anne Dykers is a poet and book artist in Silver Spring, MD. Her poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review and Ashen Meal. She has participated in numerous collaborative projects bringing together poets and visual artists at the Takoma Park Community Center, and her work has been exhibited at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center in Silver Spring.