What is in all those 200 boxes?
Eight years of living here and more before
There's ours, and mine, and his, and whose is this?
Moving, insurance, storage, cost us dear
I know that the right word should be dearly
Dear is an adjective, dearly's a verb,
Clearly the word, but no time for grammar
Container leaves, LaLa courier van's heard
We've more to pack, our motorbike gets lunch
Sushi eaten sitting on a suitcase
We've more cardboard storage boxes to fill
Lined up outside our former now locked place
Where have your lovely bookcases gone?
The new renter's agent, smiling, stops, asks
I wish we could have been in touch with her
Maybe for friendly win-win deals or tasks
We paid to have new shelves towed, thrown away
I wish we'd had time to sell or leave them
We'd one month to cancel bills, pack, and go
Could not sell nor save the landfill from them
We've now moved in a serviced apartment
Busy with goodbyes and minor matters
We paid for a large place with a kitchen
Clean and neat 'til filled with all our clutter
We have to throw half six boxes away
Going home on a plane with three cases
Rescued my water jar from lobby niche!
(But later left milk in the hotel fridge!)
Three more hours packing on Cashew landing
Keep thinking, hoping, we've nearly done it
We are still packing, sealing, cardboard cases
Front door keys gone, but I need a toilet
Luckily curious residents pass
See suitcases piled in the downstairs hall
They stop to ask, 'Moving?' I answer, 'Yes.
May I use your toilet! Thanks!' 'Not at all."
I have to take off my shoes at their door
Protect from dirt their clean, cool, white tiled floor
I might not do this next year in Europe
But I know it's this way in Singapore
Their shoe rack has a handy seat on top
You sit to take off, or put on your shoes
Every day I travel I learn new ways
Some special, new, smart things to buy and choose
I just made brand new friends, hello, goodbye
Brief pleasures ease the pain of moving out
Pool, coconut palms, cockroaches, all end
We'll make new friends in the new place, no doubt.
-ends-
Copyright Angela Lansbury 2023. Please share links to your favourite poems.
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