About My Neighbors, After A Trip

Brown floor cloaked. White flour
trail.
A leader.
A small fridge opens its wide mouth, letting me
greet its cold insides.
A rot banana.
Mucky carrots.
Luggage.

They showed up, under the door frame.
Two men drenched in
charcoal. Carrying meddling
Polaroid.

They captured broken glass,
dirt masking success,
frightened eyebrows.

My own eyes flashing back at them.
Flashing a peculiar
father who dragged my luggage
by his ankles.

The key shouldn’t have worked.
The key should have squawked in the door,
at my pink dress,
at my black heels. But, its entrance was
easy, mandatory.

When I got back to picture frames
and silence, I found
my products of life
in boxes
on a neighboring balcony.

My apologies, I said,
you shouldn’t have been bothered.

And they weren’t.
They would not be bothered
with white powdered jelly doughnuts
or
a girl,
with rotten umbilical cord
wrapped around
her neck in her dreams, every night.

The Secret

I have to say this,
you have infected me. As much as a
zombie might be forever infected – lurking around
as the walking dead.
He preys on flesh and blood to keep
his lifeless imprisonment, just as I prey
on you to get you to notice
my existence.

I tell you little, in words, but everything in touch! My fingertips
swell at the thought of reaching out
to you. I’ll meet you anywhere, at any moment,
I crave your attention.

I am not the walking dead. My blood pumps
and boils at a thought…you are the flesh
and blood that I scavage
the Earth for; the infection that
thrives me into every step I take.