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.