Philip Kobylarz, Storage Units Are Memory Apartments, Photograph
“Before They Left”
If he could stay where the memories were
With the fishermen he knew, the bird hunters,
Before they left to go, before they stopped
Coming to work, before the dream ended
When he had the farm, barely enough,
Not even his own, the owner bought the seed,
Bought the fertilizer. When he had the farm
As if it was his own.
In the winter he worked in a seed plant,
Also the owner’s, and before at an onion shed,
All during the bitter winter
The land on the farm lying fallow
If he could stay back in those years
When the brush grew thick at the end
Of the fields, for the pheasant and quail,
Where the dog would find them
It was a time, a memory now fading
His hair thinning, staring out a window
The rain and wind on the leaves of trees,
He will leave some day through the gate
In the fence
_____________
Zeke Sanchez