They call it “parting out,” this division
Of an old car into parts, at the end of its life:
Useful or useless? How do we value such,
How even begin to decide?
They parted out my father when he died,
A kidney here, a liver there; no one cared much
Except the beneficiaries my father never met.
But then, if we believe the stories that they tell
His soul had already departed its useless shell,
Which even then could not lay whole
But must be burned then scattered.
Now it seems it is my turn
To die a different kind of death–
Retirement and relocation abroad.
Amid the fray, I tell myself
I could live with this division of things,
This sorting out of books and souvenirs and art,
But am stopped by the confusion of attachments,
Memories, longings tangled, my heart a Gordian knot,
And I without a sword, nor even
Wanting one.
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