Storage Locker by Michael Penny

I have rented a storage locker
under a long-term contract,
and filled it with all I’ve forgotten.

It’s in the remote district
we have zoned to build
all our warehouses.

The angle irons frame
a ribbed aluminum space
that’s unheated and cold.

It stores names and faces
and their abandoned connections
with occasions and places.

The lessons I was taught
(but failed to learn)
line the shelves at the back

with the stuff time brought
thinking how it would be useful
for a purpose I no longer see.

This locker is not locked
but I still need a key.

— from Juniper Volume 6, Issue 3