Pieces
We are all collectors of the things we know.
We store them away, some in cabinets or drawers,
some on shelves. The useful ones we carry
in our pockets or hanging from our belts.
And my collection will never be the same as yours.
And your collection can never be the same as mine.
And even if they were, we wouldn't use them
in any of the same ways, or at the same times,
or with the same conviction, or to the same purpose,
except, perhaps, on Trivia Night.
And we are never much more than our collections:
the things we've found and picked off of the ground,
the things we've put away for later, the first things
we reach for, smooth with age, molded to our hands,
and the things we choose to unknow and replace.
It is by these that we come to be defined.
The tools determine the job.
The clothes make the man.
Until some of us throw open the doors like carnival
barkers, shining spotlights and inviting the world
to gaze in wonder upon the oddities, the great
and majestic articles we keep in our collections.
While others lock their collections up in chains
like misers, dragging them about like weighted rope.
Some can be forgiven for being haunted
by what they know.
But the farther we travel, the more we collect-
more keys on the ring, more apps on the phone-
the greater our use, and the less we're alone.
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