As a child,
I’d pore through
old cartons of letters,
trunks overstuffed with china dolls
and wedding dresses.

I could only wonder 
who were these people 
or try to match them up 
with the dying emulsion 
of old photographs,

Now, in this house,
it's my stuff that occupies
the boxes stacked in attic recesses.
There's postcards, early scribble,
a missive or two to someone special,
children's books, metal soldiers.

I sometimes go through them, 
with the object of tossing 
the unneeded, the unnecessary, 
though I never do. 

As I grow older, 
I'm less and less certain 
why I keep these things. Sometimes, 
I'm as bewildered 
as that child mired in items four generations back-

When I was young
I never thought that my precious belongings 
would be tomorrow's misbegotten souvenirs. 
It's a nostalgic trap.
I can never know the one 
who treasured this, who imagined that.
What's the point of having 
a sliver of memory 
when it can never be made whole?