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.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 