Everything Else

I was looking for a screwdriver, the cross-headed kind,

but found the debris of a much younger mind.

A yellowed receipt for a lamp I returned,

and a box of old matches that never were burned.

There was a rubber band, brittle and dry,

snapped in the shape of a crooked old 'Y'.

Dead batteries rolling in back of the space,

and a key to a lock that I can't even place.

It’s a graveyard for things that were useful one day,

now just a clutter we can’t throw away.

We keep the small pieces of lives we once led

in a drawer in the kitchen, right under the bread.