Left Behind

Have you ever gone into the house of someone who has recently died? Their life lays out there before you. The profound. The mundane. A jumble of unfinished business.

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

Left Behind

What do you leave behind
when you die? Strange,
little things, once
beneath notice, stand still
as if the blur of this life
was, say, paused by the
TV remote you had placed near
the newspaper crossword puzzle,
partly completed.
A tube of toothpaste
lies by the bathroom sink,
squeezed and rolled
neatly from the bottom.
How did I not know this
about you? The collection
of Gorilla Tape in the
drawer? So many colors!
Neat files of bills labeled
in your last shaky handwriting.
My own desk is a mess. Toothpaste
crumpled, its top lost. A hole
in my heart. What do you
leave behind when
you die?

– Steve Peterson