OVERVIEW Poem by Joke van Leeuwen

She wants to tidy up the attic in her head
to get it all arranged in boxes, the first
is for the names, the ones that glitter (they
jump right in), but also all the ones she needs
to dust off first, something with an A, a T
(the man who always brought her chocolate
she never said she didn't like
and what's-his-name-again who wanted
to kiss her on the lips and marry her
and she, blushing of course, No).

There is a box for things she wants to pass
on, a flood (I've told you all about that flood
I'm sure), the people in hiding who came
to not be anywhere and all of her first times.
The midday sun in the bedroom she slept
in as a girl with the view out over empty fields.
Her travels tangled together (where was
that castle, panorama, fog, where was
that freezing apple juice and when she fell).
(Don't close it yet.)

What stuck unnecessarily can go.
Gutting herrings, beanbags, dreadful
nagging commercials. The sign
she read as a child for a liqueur
(Stichpimpulibockforcelorum)
yellowed songs with lots of fatherland
flag-waving and all her
buckled certainties.
She holds her stiff arms up and says
Shall we go for a little walk now then?