Address Book

The old address book seems to be full.

We did once use address books

Written on paper, adding and crossing out

Our daily contacts.

A Royal Horticultural Address Book

With a rock rose on the cover.

Year after year, names added, names removed.

Fingermarks on the cover

Cleaned with a soft eraser more than once

But no date for when it started.

Leafing through the pages is

Leafing through my past.

People I know

People I knew

People no longer here

A few new additions

A few changes in phone numbers

Or addresses.

I suppose I should transfer the living

To a new address book

Or at this point to a computer file.

Include email addresses

And phone numbers.

But it’s not just the names

That this book holds

It’s all the things that happened

The places, the crisscrossing of lives,

So even if I transfer some,

The rest must stay. The book must stay,

For it is part of my story.