Affection for Bags

Friendship at its fullest comes like a big bag,
green, yellow and red striped with sturdy handles
made of twine like rope, which you fill
with all your expectations of shared experiences.
All the room for drunken nights with weeping,
laughing and the early morning philosophical brattle;
room for mistakes, space to lose misdeeds,
miscalculations, the regret of words long ago spoken.

Some friendship fits in small, leather, handbags
with intricate embroidered floral designs,
a zip-up bag with a small inner pocket to keep
the heart of yourself away, but offers some space
to meet one another on common ground,
space to place objects like respect, tolerance,
dignity and small enough to detect jealousy, manipulation, 
and cold calculation, which arrives like a surprise.

Love will sometimes come in a leather daypack,
which rests comfortably against your hips and shoulders,
and which fits all the necessary components,
but leaves no room for the extraneous and, so, you
can carry your love and desire easily without losing
track of yourself and what it is you need.

Obsession comes like lust in the black shoulder bag
with numerous pockets, zippers, and pouches.
Its the bag where you cant find anything your looking
for, and frustrated you try to keep what you think important
in the front zipped up pocket, but everything keeps escaping.

Family is always moved to the wallet.  You want to keep them
compartmentalized, slip them in, photo and all,
to their slot.  It is a comfort knowing where they are,
how they fit into your life, how easily you think they can slip
out.  Maybe, it brings you peace to think you dont need
them much at all.  Maybe it brings you peace to believe you need 
them so little you give them one, slim, slot in your wallet
and you dont realize how you keep them next to yourself.
Right next, sitting next to, your drivers license, your credit cards,
your coin and your cash, and more importantly you slip
family next to the fortune cookie piece of paper
you dont want to part with; family rests next to your tickets
from the Bif Naked concert; your family nestles next to one another.
It begins with, This is my boyfriend, moves to, This is my husband,
shifts over to, These are my children.  Who you love the most
is kept in the wallet for the wallet is the heart of any bag.

© Heather Simeney MacLeod