Scrap
My husband places the paper
in a sturdy box on his desk.
My anxiety rises, lest
it fall into the wrong hands.
Any hands but ours are wrong.
It should not have been printed —
the ether where a cloud
keeps words alive forever
is more remote, if not safer.
What else is in that box?
Old ads for used machinery,
spoiled, unnecessary receipts.
What does he have planned?
To reuse the blank side, a line scrawled
across the dangerous text?
I recognize my anxiety —
from encountering my own words,
mid-manuscript, backing a list,
that single line not obscuring,
my mid-story exposed to everyone.
And I have put old manuscript pages
in recycling, imagining them ground
into pizza boxes, but knowing more likely
they fly loose in a landfill somewhere.
What will become of this dangerous paper,
placed so casually, as if it were scrap
and not a record, a secret to be kept?
And then it comes to me, and I relax.
This box is destined for the shop,
for the black wood stove,
for crumpling, spark, and flame.
For burning, as for any source of shame.
