Everyone has documents that they shouldn’t have to present to people. This poem may get additional stanzas as there are more interactions:
The Blue Folder
A blue folder on a kitchen table
Simply evidence of a job
In an office
Before Covid
But this blue folder contains suffering
It only comes out when it is time to grieve
It is only opened when my word is not enough
The pages are only read by other people
And only kept by a rare few
A subset of whom forget they have them
The folder answers basic questions…
Was I married?
Did my wife die?
Am I in control of her estate?
Every time the folder is opened
It is because I have lost part of her
And have to claw her back into my life
Then spend hours or days
Deciding that the folder
Can go back in the safe
So I can feel safe
From it
—Hritz