Your start-up disk is full and
even the trash bin is overflowing with documents
unfinished poetry
useless screen-shots
endless essays from a language class you took years ago;
there is music
a library that once belonged to your father,
records from his adolescence,
lyrics that remind him of his own father
songs you never listen to
except when you call dad on the phone –
the melodies are in his speech,
the song he danced at his wedding lives in his eyes,
Your start-up disk is full and
How can you delete your family tree
How can you become a house fire
burn the first stories you wrote
and the Christmas pictures.
You’ve never been the type to do spring cleanings
but rather you hoard
the letters from your middle school lover 
your parents’ divorce papers,
the hospital receipts,
and the happy birthday emails
until the boxes no longer fit in your laptop,
or in the garage, or in your closet,
or in your entire house.
Your start-up disk is full and
you cannot write any more poems
without erasing old ones, and so you do:
out go the worst and the best,
your former thoughts no longer fit, new words replace old ones,
a sort of creative sustainability.
Your start-up disk is emptied and
now you can only listen to one song at a time,
you’ve made the rest disappear.
Your mind knows only the poem you
are currently writing
which will vanish when you write the last period.
Now the pictures are gone
and so are the Christmases,
not to mention the weddings, the divorce
and the birthdays
they all had to be deleted so you could continue
to be you –
whoever you are without the music