january sixteenth time

There were bundles of burdens that morning.
No return addresses. They sat on the front yard
like fresh tree stumps, and patiently decomposed.
They were all different sizes--some were tiny
but exceptionally dense. Some rolled across
the front porch like tumbleweeds. I wanted
to bury them in the vegetable patch. Forgetting
was not an option, really: Someday, they would
be ripe, and they would blossom from their
chest-deep-husks as heart attacks are prone
to do. The anxiety of their hiatus would be
too much. The burdens had these mysterious
means of coming and going. There were always
ribbons on the boxes--I could tell that someone,
somewhere, was exceptionally grateful.