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Spare Parts

Old books on the shelves reflecting every self
I’ve ever been.

The boy who thought he’d do much better to the
man who got fired for correcting his boss.

The trips to the zoo and the trips to Europe and
the trips back home during midterms where I carried
the books in cardboard boxes up staircases to rooms
that were long ago abandoned.

I’ve outgrown this old house and want to let my
old selves breathe. I can’t stand to leave them
stacked on the shelves.

Or in boxes.

I open the small ones last and count the contents.
I recount them later because if one went missing
It would leave a hollow space.

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The Old Ones Claim…

A rainforest changes the man.
It changes the woman.

Some were born with rivers
in their blood. Their ancestors
spoke to raven and bear, spoke to wolf
and otter and black fish,
spoke to salmon and eagle and frog and heron.

You speak to them, too, and they talk back. Sometimes
you’re close to grasping what they say—
that’s one way the rainforest changes you.

One day at dusk a bear
walks through the eye
of the camera.
The old ones claim
a man lives inside a bear;
you tell no one
a bear lives inside a man.

There are weeks in the forest
when your whole body is
a word even you can’t utter
but the trees, in their
deep listening,
hear.

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Anthony Bartolla © 2024