Spring Cleaning

Terry Jude Miller

In constant fear you’d become the hoarder your abusive father was, you toss everything that lacks immediate utility.  You bring paint cans to the recycling center when you’ve used just a smidge of their subterfuge on a reclaimed nightstand or Mexican pottery planter.  You discard me, finding no use for affection, for handholding in the movies, for anything more than a chicken peck of a kiss.  Why keep something around that doesn’t work for you anymore?  Your father’s backyard is full of motors with thrown rods and clothes dryers with defective doors.  All go into the dumpster, where you place me beside the Texaco sign with burned-out bulbs and a length of chain missing its master link.

"Spring Cleaning" was first published in Perennial, now Verdict Magazine. This poem describes a breakthrough by a companion that didn't turn out well for the poet.