I take those things I do not need and set them in black plastic bags by the curbside, to go wherever such things are taken.  I turn my back on them and go to complete other tasks, but they, in their opaque solitude, seem to watch me as I go, like abandoned children in rearview mirrors who know not what they are. 

Those things I cherish I wrap in paper and plastic and pack tightly in cardboard boxes marked "this side up" and, "fragile handle with care."  I look at them and smile, in my mind unwrapping them already, eager as a child.  They shift inside their boxes ever so slightly, settling themselves, secure in their place.  And I secure in mine.  

The things I need, I efficiently swaddle and shove in bins filled high with necessities.  I barely notice them anymore.  They are my drunkard's bottle, my mendicant's cart.  Silverware and dishes, scissors, pencils, twine; they are my tender escorts, my multicolored shadows.  Like all shadows, they grow longer as the day wears on.  At day's end, they too, like shadows, are all that remain.

I am left, then, with the sundries of my life; the odds and ends I don't remember packing, which, nevertheless, greet me wherever I go.  At times they are things I thought long lost, and  I welcome them as estranged children; those who left seeking fathers, and who now find instead a place of comfort as sons.  At times those forgotten things are a hurricane.  A closet thought empty, but for a dust covered breeze; a long forgotten corner in which lies a draft, face down, that, when turned, becomes a storm.  Rattling window panes and shattering calms, they come, one by one, up from their resting places like weevils in July.  They are my dying children, my bitter lovers, the fragments of my shattered dreams.  They are my scars, and when the storm is over they disappear, like broken clouds, but for the shade on my heart. 

I take my boxes, bins and bags, and load them into cars or trucks or wagons.  I pack them tightly so that nothing is damaged, books on bottom.  I check and recheck them to ensure nothing is lost.  As I prepare to go, I always feel that I've left something, forgotten something.  I am usually right,  but I needn't worry; nothing is ever truly lost, and as I leave I smile up at clear skies.  When next I move, who knows what pieces of myself I will find.