All There Is by Ruth Holzer

Hitting bottom, sleeping on straw,
not quite the true bottom, but sinking
inescapably in that direction.

The broken suitcase stuffed
with shoes and books. Burned
in the grate, the pleading letters from home.

A pound note folded thinly in my pocket.
The door finally closed
on the Museum of Lost Causes,

and the key handed back
to the landlady, who cried a little
to see me go.



Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press) and Float (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant and previously in Red Eft Review. She is a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.