"Fall Cleaning" by Nick Humez

Fall Cleaning

Expect, when I’m seventy, a frenzy of throwing things out,

for then I’ll presumably know (as best one can know

from a lifetime’s accumulated wisdom, or at least what

passes), that no poor graduate student will go

rootling through my files to squeeze out a dissertation

for a doctorate, a tenure-track job at a small state college,

getting cited (assuming his thesis garners publication

by a comparatively respectable scholarly press)

in other people’s footnotes, thus advancing all knowledge

three butterfly steps.

And here's the lyric turn:

“What’s all this piffle, in the dance of eternity? Less

is notoriously more!” (Sing it out, every minimalist!)

“There ain’t no storage units in Jerusalem the Blest!”

The shredder beckons. The stove replies, “I burn.”

—NDH 6.viii.2010

Nick Humez taught mythology at Montclair State University. In retirement he works as an indexer for scholarly presses and makes silver jewelry which he sells worldwide. We will have another of his poems later this month.