Everything I Let Go of

Chris Anderson
| poetry

 

One of us is dead.

One of us sleeps in his van, parked

at the curb in front of his sister’s house.

I’ve just retired.

 

In the morning I walk through

the gray woods

listening to the birds, amazed.

Disbelieving.

 

On Earth when you put down a cup

it stays there, as Scott Kelly

said when he was

living on the station. But now

 

everything I let go of

floats away.

Chris Anderson is a recently retired professor of English at Oregon State University and a Catholic deacon. He has published a number of books of poetry and prose, most recently a book of poems, You Never Know, from Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

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