cleaning up after

she was gone. dead. buried.
with no one mourning her.
the cleaning crew
for muchos dolleros
came in to clean house.

they could've dumped it all
in gallon cans
for a curbside pickup.
but one of the chaps,
an aquarian with a pony tail,
stumbled upon a thought.

a tiny random one,
but not unfamiliar to him.
did she fill holes
with memories too?
so they all sat down,
and used six work days
to sift through them all.

the brown button on a khaki shirt
the crease upon a brow
the remnants of a laugh
the touch of roving hands

ghost text messages
and used coffee spoons
napkins used to mark
the tyranny of waiting

mental pictures of shared sunsets
and accounting of tears
a bill book of anguishes
a notebook of fears

would anyone else understand
the need to remember
gestures, words, promises?

they could fill boxes of those
but who could want them now?

the clean-up crew knew
one day upon a distant landfill
these and many other
hoarded desires would flower.
and the earth would smell
of nutmeg and coffee,
of honeysuckle and lillies again.