This Side Up

If you wait long enough

you can have your whole life

condensed into a few cardboard boxes.

You’ll have to pack them yourself.

If you work all your life

and pay your taxes and allow

progress to pass you by,

and forget to tick the right part

of the insurance form,

you can sit and watch them

condemn your house;

the house you grew up in,

the house you married

and raised kids in,

despite the perfectly good

shoring timbers (which didn’t 

look quite right on the close)

and they’ll relocate you

to a brand new serviced flat

nearby, but it’ll never be the same,

you’ll think, as you sit

in the empty front room

on the last box, with the van full

and ready to go, and ask for

one last minute alone to wonder

with slowly moistening eyes,

how your life became distilled

into this last box marked Fragile

This Side Up. Handle With Care.

John H Davies

27th March 2011