Drawers that Stick

Some of the drawers stick.
It happens to old furniture sometimes.
The slides wear rough
Swell in the heat and humidity.
Still, with a little effort, you can pull them out,
push them in.
The drawers are shallow, an inch or two thick,
made for maps, or old artwork.
never too much in a single drawer,
they make you decide
what is worth saving and what is not.

Ghosts live there. One or two in each drawer.
Carefully curated. Only let out now and again,
Mostly when someone else wants to talk
about history and dark times,
hoping to find some insight into now.
Mostly they don’t.
The main thing about those old ghosts
is that I survived them.
They are, for me, more curiosity than haunting,
pulled out for tea and dancing,
then carefully folded up for another day,
put away like old art
in the drawers that stick.

About this poem.

My ghosts used to bother me. Now I dine with them and exchange gossip. On my terms.

Tom