The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Climbing into Closets

Into the crib, the kindergarten 
college, career, and canoodling
the walls stand ever framed in monumental 
duties and dirge-drenched memories
yet when our companions scatter off
and silence falls upon the uncleaned
carpet and the oven creaks as it cools

I climb into the back of the closet
sit indian-style underneath the fall
of fur coats and vinyl slickers
and clutch an old cigar box from 
between the shoes, pausing to read
from the laminations before lifting 
the scuff of the lid to gaze inside

a button, a shell, a forgotten jingle bell

Gifts from lost souls who hover around
the edges as neurons sparkle and the
mind's eye weeps in drunken nostalgia
here I am all ages, an artless friend
to the grotesque and sublime alike
soaked in the kindness of the proven victor
mercy drains away into the practice of
staring timelessly into the wonder of
the whence and wherefore of it all.
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