Onwards

I help wash away your presence,
a wet towel on cobwebbed baseboards,
tracking down dandelion Q-tips in drawers' corners
and trashing them with lotions your tanned arms used once and abandoned.

While you scrub away rings of Indian spices in your refrigerator,
the ones you promised me you'd show me how to use but never did,
we reminisce of how many times we have done this,
and how we promise
next time, we'll start sooner.

But we never do. As we clean, empty and box, we discuss packing strategies, that time
I accidentally scarred your antique table playing quarters and how we're amazed when my overflowing Corolla manages to embrace one more Budweiser beer box.