Ron Padgett

The Stapler
by Ron Padgett

When my mother died
she left very little: old clothes,
modest furniture, dishes, some
change, and that was about it.
Except for the stapler. I found it
in a drawer stuffed with old bills
and bank statements. Right off
I noticed how easily it penetrated
stacks of paper, leaving no bruise
on the heel of my hand.
It worked so well I brought it home,
along with a box of staples, from
which only a few of the original 5000
were missing. The trick is remembering
how to load it—it takes me several minutes
to figure it out each time, but I persist until
Oh yes, that's it! Somewhere in all this
my mother is spread out and floating
like a mist so fine it can't be seen,
an idea of wafting, the opposite of stapler.

Appears in The New York Review of Books, December 18, 2008 (Volume 55, Number 20).

constult / latibulate / yepsen

constult
to act stupidly together.
latibulate
to hide oneself in a corner.
yepsen
the amount that can be held in two hands cupped together; also, the two cupped hands themselves.