TWO POEMS

Two Rolls

The only way to ferry mementos
unnecessary for survival to a new place
was to make like the farmer in that riddle, with his chicken,
fox, and sack of grain: trip after trip, mindful
of the logic things have, the fox eats the chicken
eats the grain, the canoe not too steady.

Hint 1: remember always to bring
something back with you, for perishables
like photographs and diaries and letters should not
be left alone with an appetite like time’s.

I began with baby pictures, a small me sittingin a metal crib pulling a hat off my head,a plastic roly-poly righting herselfbefore turning back to flesh, falling over.