Davening. Head bowed between feet, kissing forehead to earth, paper body folded on the sun-splashed kitchen floor. My toddler is keening in supplication to the Gods of Can. This time can I open the baby gate? Can I hold the knife Daddy uses to cut my blueberries? Can I stand on this chair and finally see what’s on top of the counter? But the governing forces of Can’t are as certain as sunrise and gravity and naptime. When I lift her squirming body and tell her that she can’t stand on …
Baby That Baby
She says, I don’t think that baby is eating enough, and I poke a pointy finger into its spongy side. But Baby, I say, that baby is a round baby. Round like pomelo, like a panda, like a wheel of Parmesan cheese. That baby is a terrycloth towel full of tapioca pudding. And Baby, that baby is gonna be fine. She says, I don’t think that baby is eating enough, and who am I to doubt her? I am not monitoring frequency and flow, and I only measure throughput in pre-portioned popsicles and tiny …
When I Hear the Baby
When I hear the baby, I think it’s a cat that’s been left outside in the rain, that’s stuck in a tree, that’s weaved its weak body into an open pipe and can’t find its way out. When I hear the baby, I think it’s a tiny jay fallen from a tall branch, its busy bird-mom out running errands. Or maybe it’s a sick squirrel, writhing in pain, like the one I once discovered beneath a bench in Mexico when I was, myself, practically a baby. Not old enough to know any better. I tried to pick it …
in response to the viral r/askreddit thread titled “what’s classy if you’re rich, but trashy if you’re poor?”*
On Saturday, diner day at Cozy's, I’d wear my new mascara and order a face-sized breakfast. I’d whisper, “do we look rich?” Grandma wore furs. She said things like “primo” and “I betcha.” We were fancy together. Fancy. Fancy. Fancy. I’d fancy-chant till I was dizzy. Grandma was how I learned to salt my pancakes. “To wake the syrup,” she said. I began salting my eyelids, too, after I first saw her with the palette. Her tender strokes. We lived with tense necks, seized by a …
Blaze
I am emptying the fireplace ashes so you can make a fire to seduce me. There’s a pile of tossed bills to be burnt because they have information someone might steal. Our signatures. The pile suggests, via nonrelativistic classical mechanics, a closed system: paper made from wood, wood burning paper. No rock. Maybe a pair of scissors is lying around here somewhere. I am filling the bag as fast as possible because seductions are time-sensitive. The height, the weight, the heat, all are factors. …
Meditations on Trash in a Time of Dumpster Fires
Just before seven a.m., I hear the garbage truck. I’ve already taken the black bin to the curb. The old hockey bag spread inside the front entry for the past month didn’t fit, despite the fact I’d been dismembering it for weeks, disposing of it in serial-killer pieces. A strap, a zipper, a flap of soiled canvas. All that’s left is the plastic frame and the wheels. Braless, I pick up the bag, and sprint barefoot down the driveway. The garbage man pulls up. His truck is a side loader. He releases …