Packing a Life Into Paper Bags

As I cleaning out closets,

I think about death--

how personal

yet anonymous

our clothes are.

How they evoke the  seasons,

our hard work and simple leisure,

the photographable days and the time

that slips by in an increasing blur.

Shoes, especially,

warp and wear so differently

that I wonder who buys

our shed soles at the resale shop?

Who walks that mile in our ill-fitting

mocs when we leave them behind?

It is my own death I'm celebrating

today, a death of outfits

from one life, and the demise

of garb from another, moving on.

Several small deaths I pack

into bags and donate

so that others can dress in them,

make entirely different lives

of them. Maybe I'll see someone

wearing that shirt I loved,

and for a moment I'll think I

must know them.

I wonder, too, if I'll do this again

for someone else, packing the clothes

I loved seeing them wear, that nubby

sweater I wept on, the button I replaced,

the pants whose pockets I picked

every laundry day. I wonder who

will do this for me, when my clothes

outlive me, and go on to live other lives,

as unknowing as the four-eyed buttons
joining one side to another.