Clearing Out

How do you unpick a life?

A Silver Spoon?

A Stanley Knife?

A riddle rewritten eighty times

A code of unsolved

Synaptic rhymes

Ten pairs of pants stuffed in a drawer

All large, all beige

And never worn

A hundred pairs of sports socks stabled 

In wicker baskets

Each one labelled

Who never ran nor joined a gym

All trainers spotless

All T-shirts, prim.

His knickknacks offering little more

A holy relic

A Galway shawl

Brollies, sunglasses, a myriad

Of structured chaos

In his head

These random parts all plain to see

Must cheat Death’s sting

No victory

Could he be here, cowering in the niche

Between the crisps

And mouldy quiche?

Trembling in speechless wonder

At this sublime

Disordered order?

No Death infests another hole

Taking his confession

Unpacking his soul.