'Out in the Open' at the Chatham-Kent Museum

OUT IN THE OPEN

(On the occasion of the Chatham-Kent Museum’s storage exhibition, March 31, 2016)

My African home is far from these walls of chrome, but I wait

and watch.

Nurse comes with her white gloves,

gently removing four jewelled hair clips

from their box of cedar velveteen,

laying them smoothly on a bed of porous foam.

I am out in the open now

witnessing Charon’s reckoning.

Each is given their number,

identified, classified, categorized,

but on my tome ledge

they pass by. Odd mastodon teeth

chatter in their glass;

my only companion is nested in her

casket of carefully woven linen,

far from river reeds of old;

I’m out of the closet

Guitars, lap harps, megaphones that once

sang in a cacophony of light

now stored,

but in a safe space

breathing and live.

I’m out of the dark

time pieces, milk bottles, my Bon Ami and a cyclops

eye

authenticized and imparting pointed purpose

to the particulars in our lives.

Vein-thin flags, garments and

balled gowns from a fading familiar past

yet wait still and silent

for

your eyes to give us voice.