Her father has stopped eating.
Her mother calls:
they must decide
about a feeding tube.
That night, she finds
herself in the grocery store,
filling her cart with cheese,
chips, chocolate
as if she could eat
for him,
as if she could stuff
the hole
that is opening
in their lives,
threatening
to swallow them.
You sold all your things
before your trip
around the world
hauled them down the stairs
spread them out in the yard,
pieces of your life piled high:
books and records
clothes and shoes
a coat rack shaped like a cactus
the tie dye bedspread
the pewter bowl from your windowsill
the necklace with the garnet pendant
your baby pictures
your paintings
your sketch books.
A friend said she wished
she could buy them all and keep
them for you until your return.
I opened one of them,
started to look through the pages
but it felt like a sin.
I could not have
them in my house.
They would whisper
in their box, haunt me—
nobody should own
a piece of another’s soul.
Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019) and The Eden of Perhaps (Spartan Press, 2020), and her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines.