i.
I dab Bactine on my cut hands,
the hospital smell
a calm among accumulating lists,
like paper knives lashing
my skin. On the television:
write a new poem, take out the trash;
in the foothole of my worst pair
of shoes: get your Ph.D., email your sister;
under the cat:
buy litter, Bounty, soap, and learn Polish.
Next to the lists where nothing’s crossed
off, columns of numbers
measure my trudging through the bill month.
I wash sheets in the
meantime, trying to keep my night life smooth glass
because I dream of paper
piles of it, like dried leaves
blowing in a squall.
I can’t order them,
or order them to stop. I open my mouth
to the sky, beg for the old scents
that held onto me
the minute I stepped off the school bus
and into my mother’s arms:
newsprint, antiseptic, chocolate chips.