Someone left an empty milk bottle
on the wall outside their house.
It was just like the ones we had when I was ten.
Ridged bottom, thick glass, impossible for me 
to smash when filled with frozen milk,
raised letters and a bit of Braille. 
I almost took it home.
 
I kept a few Nice Boxes from last Christmas.
I put them on a shelf above the dining table.
I bet I will just move them round and round 
the dusty-greasy tops of the kitchen cupboards,
never using them for anything at all.
 
I don’t really think I need those boxes
and I’m glad I left that bottle where it stood;
keeping things around just in case is a waste.
 
My dad used to do the same thing with food –
pots of grease and left-overs moulding in the fridge –
and with people – hanging on till they rotted away –
before he murdered three* men we all loved
and wound up locked up for five thousand days.

*an actual violent murder of his own father, and two metaphorical “murders”: 1. Of him/his person/character (from my PoV) and, 2. Of me (of the person I’d been till then ).