Valium

The house had been empty for the winter and spring;
we opened the doors to let in June air.
We looked at the stuff of our last-year’s-selves
with a quiet, nearly forensic, interest: an empty jar,
a book of matches in a shirt pocket, baby toys
Olivia had outgrown; surveyed the cupboards,
the remnants of the winter festival of mice.
It was as if we were reading last year’s journal,
words we no longer remembered writing.
On the rug there was, amidst all the dead flies,
a beautiful little moth with celadon wings.
I placed it in a shell on the mantel beneath the mirror,
beside an old Tibetan spoon with a ruby glass bead
in its shallow bowl. I want to dissolve my personality,
let go of this self that clings to itself like winter’s dead flies
clinging to the fibers of the carpet.