Concerning Evidence

The box is about nine inches square and four inches tall;

the material is a cheap synthetic brown leather.

It is hinged and within it are many torn and ruined pieces of paper,

as well as empty plastic wrappers that once held now-forgotten chemicals.

These torn and rootless scraps are on ruled notebook paper

or the back of envelopes, or upon napkins- drafts written in pen

when my black notebooks were out of reach.

I shredded them during a fit of madness, some months ago.

My demon love was in the other room

but eventually came to investigate the sounds of tearing and my sobs.

Among these fragments, an unused line from an early draft of my Furies poem:

“the prefect Orestes descended,” then from number 15 of my Carmina,

“my fingers in your hair” and “wondered how,”

then I find the only needle I ever put into my arm,

then a picture of my face and shoulders

taken when I was fifteen and still brimful of lust and rage.

Immediately after I throw the box in the dumpster, none of this will have occurred.