Poetry: Selections From David Anson Lee

Inventory

The estate sale began at nine.

By ten-thirty
someone had bought the blue mug
with the crack shaped like Florida.

A retired teacher carried away
the lamp that blinked
whenever a storm approached.

The grandchildren argued over nothing.

Three folding tables sagged
beneath the archaeology of a life:

rubber bands,
expired coupons,
keys to forgotten doors,
a receipt for strawberries
from fourteen years ago.

Nobody wanted the hearing aids.

Nobody wanted the cane.

Nobody wanted the notebook
filled with passwords
to accounts already closed.

By noon

strangers were carrying pieces
of a dead man
to their cars.

The toaster.

The fishing vest.

The snow globe
containing a city
he had never visited.

At one o'clock

a little girl paid fifty cents
for his reading glasses.

She placed them on her face
and laughed.

The world became enormous.

The world became clear.

The world belonged to her.

The cashier wrote SOLD
on another sticker.

The afternoon continued.

 

 

 

Refrigerator Light

Every night

the refrigerator waits for me.

Not the food.

The light.

At two-thirteen,
two-forty-one,
three-oh-six:

I open the door
as though arriving
for a scheduled appointment.

Inside:

mustard,
half an onion,
yogurt approaching extinction.

Nothing unusual.

Still,

I return.

The light pours across the kitchen floor.

A temporary moon.

An artificial mercy.

I stand there barefoot
holding the cold handle
like the rail of a ship.

Something is missing.

Not milk.

Not eggs.

Not any object
that can be purchased.

The shelves offer no diagnosis.

The jars remain silent.

The vegetables
have withdrawn from discussion.

I close the door.

Darkness returns.

Thirty minutes later

I try again.

Surely absence
must occupy space somewhere.

Surely longing
has a visible form.

At dawn

the refrigerator continues humming.

Patient.

Indifferent.

The light waits behind the door

for the next inspection.

For years
I have mistaken it
for an answer.

 

 

 

 

 

David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and former academic ophthalmologist. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, his work often explores mortality, memory, identity, medicine, and the uneasy intersections between modern life and the human spirit. His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Right Hand Pointing, Braided Way, Eunoia Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Silver Birch Press, Mouthful of Salt, and The Orchards. He lives in Texas.