It Smells Like Orange Blossoms Again

Empty boxes
Piled in the living room
Being filled with history
History enclosed in books
and that old shoe box where we threw all the stuff that cluttered the counter because it had no place to go.
And then that box turned into two and then three

What are these things we are compelled to save, but never use?

I stood in the open doorway
gazing over the cactus to the spot of grass where a tree once grew
Just the stale view of the parking lot now.

It smells like orange blossoms again.

A flood of memories
So many things change
Why did we change?

I move away from the door and look at the pots and pans that must be sorted through and packaged;
Separately

I push the hair off my face because

It’s too late;
It smells like orange blossoms again,
but nothing else is the same.