A poem

Cardboard
 
Begin the exploration,
the excavation,
whatever you choose
to call it,
first groaning about the task.
 
So hard to leave your chair,
that bastion of tattered comfort.
So hard to set yourself in motion.
 
When it starts,
juggle a series of bags –
keep, donate, recycle –
the common wisdom
Marie Kondo
and your mother
might impart.
 
Plunge wrist-deep
into the task,
finding along the way
that you’re a minor-league failure.
 
Mail you never bothered to open.
shopping lists for dinners never made.
Get to the aborted love letter from 1996
abandon ship
seek port.