Emma Murf

NPR reports mummified monkey remains found in luggage at Boston's airport

and again, I’m confronted with the fact
that I overpack. Just once I would like to 

leave enough space for  spontaneity,  for
eight pounds of dehydrated monkey. But 

it isn’t clear if fifty-eight & sunny calls for full-
length  or three-quarter sleeves.   My mother 

used to call it   the parade   my promenading
down a carpeted staircase,  six or seven items 

“just in case.” And even she has been known to
keep track of location, call on occasion to check 

you’re not in the middle of the Mediterranean
as her app indicates. Careful is a family name. 

I learn the monkey man first claimed it was
only dried fish, as I squish three-point-four- 

ounce soaps into a one-liter clear-plastic
bag and just once,   I’d like to have the

gall to call anything  something  it isn’t,
to perk the ears of an entire canine unit. 

But I’m the one standing just behind him
asking,       “Should I remove my shoes?”

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Emma Murf is a poet and humorist living in Madrid. Her work has been published in Liminal Press, Slackjaw, The Belladonna Comedy, Points in Case and others. Her poetry often explores what families pass down. But her first poem, at eight years old, explored listing her brother on eBay. Find her work at emmamurf.com/writing.