By Virginia LeBaron

you don’t need more hangers, or a drawer lined with contact paper decorated with fruit
so carefully you pack in and pack out, a meticulous master of leaving
no trace.  How neatly you fold up your presence, in one black bag

some days, I marvel at what you don’t know:  the rain spout broken
loose, the neighbor’s cat digging up the bulbs,
the mammogram, suspicious

this morning – a first – your blue toothbrush, dripping
balanced on the sink’s edge, forgotten
in your haste

I take it, mark it as evidence, astonished
I have managed to create a life so full
of little leavings

~~~

Virginia LeBaron is a nurse and writer of poetry and non-fiction. Her works include Cardinal Marks (Finishing Line Press) and Caring in Context (Routledge Press), and her writing has been supported by the Lighthouse Poetry Collective and residencies with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Graves Mill Farm. Her collection of poetry, “Care, a reckoning” was a finalist for the 2025 St. Lawrence Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Mom Egg Review, Potomac Review, Bicoastal Review, and Pigeon Pages, among others. Learn more at: www.virginialebaron.com