Spinning Wheel

 

When you melted into my home,

you brought nine stone of love

and nine tons of stuff.

More, even, than my eager heart

you filled my two-car garage.

We built shelves destined

never to contain all:

 

ornaments for a Yuletide forest,

pink glassware from the war,

Laura’s loom, mute cuckoo clock,

bent Easter baskets, photo albums,

uprooted family tree, antique bed

(too wide for one, too slight for two)

with no fit mattress. Yet in all

 

this flotsam is something of use.

Though lacking essential parts

for its intended purpose,

the old spinning wheel

still spins an unbroken thread:

a lifeline afloat on your sea

of liquid memory.