At the Altar

That bag you packed me when you sent me to the universe— camp after camp I’ve opened it debating whether to unpack— Not yet, not yet— Why did I feel so much in it was dangerous on the playground, too good for everyday, feel those splendid fireworks hazardous to institutions, unmannerly to etiquette, so that, time after time, I found myself saying Not yet? At each new place I faced it, it suggested, Here spread out your things, put on this coat, open this bottle— No, not yet . . . sometimes throwing something out, giving things away, lightening my load. . . . The more I pull out, the more it seems, some days, is left inside, the heavier it is. Sometimes I think this package is almost a door the opening of which careening across heaven could be fatal. Some days now I wonder if I’ll ever dare face my given garments— permanently wrinkled, surely out of date— your travel-thought wasting in its tissue, flesh-corrupt— till I’ve absorbed it, like those stitches that dissolve in an incision where something’s been removed.