PLASTIC BAGS

by Ciarán Parkes

The small sounds
I take for rain at first
as the plastic bags
slowly unclench their fists.

I’d just come in, dropping
everything on the floor,
the plastic bags relax,
fill themselves with air.

I look around me,
up from the day I’m having,
at random objects
scattered in the room.

The plastic bags lift free
from all the stuff inside them,
look like themselves again.
I listen to them breathing.