1. My head is hanging below your knees in the northwest corner of the kitchen floor. I’m waiting to feel your fingers drum on my head and give me a reason to move. Until then I follow your feet in your boots as you drift in place over the tile. I try to figure out where you’ve been since last time by the colors and smells of the dirt you’re brought in with you.
2. Your ankles remind me of a porcelain doll. They look like they were shattered and then fit back together as best they could. The bones press out too far and you always seem out of balance. I wonder how you survive on a windy day. You always have to sit down while I’m working. But before we start, in the moments like this, you seem to relish in how much power you get to hang over my head. You make me wait a long time before signalling me to start.
3. You’re very patient as I drag my fingertips along the toothmarks your socks have left in rings around your skin. I’m still impressed by how good of a memory your flesh manages to keep. Sometimes all I have to do is gesture or impersonate something to see the bumps and divots echo out over your figure. I pretend I’m holding a tool and your whole body curls into some other shape. I wait for a disciplinary knock but it never comes.
4. Somewhere else, Jackie is wandering the room with her teeth out. She’s tracking a noise or maybe searching for open doors. It’s hard to tell because she’s still holding her eyes in the pink bib she’s tied around her pearl rail neck. Her shoulders are open and splintered even under all her clothes. She knows less and says nothing.
5. Any time you want, you could tie me down and cut me up. You could tell me to stop. Instead you do all this and wait your turn. It’s a guessing game or a classroom bluff. I’m sure it’s very fun for somebody, but I can’t imagine it’s you.
6. Jackie grunts at her potted meat and gives the room another reason. Something gets thrown and everybody wonders why even though they should be past such things. We’re all waiting for the day where she’ll fall over and stop breathing and be somebody else who doesn’t know how to eat and can’t think enough to throw. Until then, this is the job.
7. My joints crack and a red sheet pulls over my chest. I feel you above and below me and for a second I forget what’s going on. We’re knee-deep under the oblong table and somewhere between each other. We must be stuck but we don’t know how to say it. White lashes run over our faces as we struggle and we lie. We’ll start again today just like every other time we said and something else.
(2018)