Rowing to Save

by Ed Sanders

I borrowed my neighbor’s aluminum boat
and rowed back to the house
with a list from Nell and the kids

Nell wanted the parakeet food if I could find it
Sally her stuffed beagle,
and Lonnie his box of CDs
which might be upstairs still dry
and maybe some of our photo albums.

Tied the aluminum to an old metal gargoyle
and went in through the upper window
loaded up two plastic bags with drawstrings

Just out of reach I spotted the row of my
friends’ unpublished manuscripts
under the water

Then I noticed our bathroom mirror
somehow it was rafting among the books!
I stared down at the clown in the glass:
it was I!

I had to make some choices-
I saved the old family Bible from Tennessee
our wedding pictures
and my first edition “Howl”

but had to leave the manuscripts behind

“I saw the best minds
of my generation
melting in the vast nomenclatureless neantification”
came off my lips
as I rowed back to the van

that would take us to Baton Rouge