Would you mind looking through an old man’s desk?
All this stuff here hasn’t been touched in ages:
the stapler is dusty;
the pens have dried.
Why is there a calendar from 1986?
Would you mind sorting through this pile of papers?
Most of it’s junk—
an instruction manual for our first TV,
a twenty-year-old coupon book.
Some of it’s not—
remember when we took this photo at the zoo?
Would you mind getting that box of records?
I think you’ll like some of these—
Sinatra, Beatles, Rachmaninoff,
Copland, Goodman, Beethoven.
Have you heard of Burt Bacharach?
Would you mind taking a peek at these pictures?
That’s you when you were young.
This is him when he was young.
Isn’t the resemblance uncanny?
Would you mind looking through an old man’s desk?