American Pandora

 

Pandora admires her stack of new moving boxes from U-Haul.

After the debacle last time,

any problems should be small

like the railroad apartment she's leaving.

Pandora was a gifted kid, winning science projects and writing ribbons

tacked up on a bulletin board,

but like many to whom much is given,

she never expected the burn-out and the drifting.

Buck up, girl! she tells herself, and starts sorting gewgaws and hair bows.

I was set up to fail, she thinks,

loaded up with junk and mottoes

from all those uncles appearing from workbenches with scavenged parts.

She'll pack these boxes and mail them to herself out in Santa Fe

where the Land of Enchantment

waits with its southwestern way

of letting hope grow like junipers around the foothills and her heart.

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