vultures and dead memories

We milled around the dead woman’s estate
like vultures picking through the things  
nobody had come to claim  
 
A woman beside me bragged openly  
about the 100% Romanian wool rug she’d just scored  
while I held a sad looking stack of music CD’s  
with titles like “Romantic Italy”  
and pointed to a vintage arm chair  
we’d already loaded onto the back of the ute  
 
I didn’t tell her it smelt like pee  
I figured it would destroy the romance of the find  
and it’s hard to gloat over something beautiful  
while admitting you’ll be carrying part  
of the dead lady home with you  
to hopefully soak out in the wash  
 
We loaded half the ute that day  
with the kind of junk  
people donate to thrift stores  
or leave in the bin for landfill  
CD’s with songs so old  
they don’t play them on the radio anymore  
a Betamax tape I couldn’t play  
old knitting guides with patterns that were  
moderately out of date and could be tweaked  
for something more fashionable if someone  
was so inclined  
 
I filled a shoe box with buttons  
knitting needles, ribbons and lace  
old cross stitches just waiting to be finished  
trinkets from overseas trips  
that maybe I would keep  
or maybe I wouldn’t  
 
Yet for everything we took that day  
what bothered me was the things  
we left behind  
photo albums of people and places  
no one would remember  
a pair of glasses so strong  
they gave you a headache  
just from trying them on  
and a framed black and white photo  
of German couple and two small children  
with the inscription  
“The Stintman family  
leaving Bremerhaven, August 1953”  
 
We milled around the dead woman’s estate  
like vultures picking through the things  
nobody had come to claim  
 
© Indie Adams 2017