Cleaning Up
Through
a door
of what had been a house, into the field
of rubble, walks a single lamb, tilting
its head, curious, unafraid, hungry.
“The
Lamb”
Linda
Gregg
(I think, I
think it’s so
that we are our
own
Lascaux, inside
you know…)
Room Two:
It’s different
in the kitchen. The table
has a crack
down the middle, it’s
tipped onto its
round lip, is a split
cheek. But righting its not easy, not by
herself alone,
not oak. But soon she sees its just
the absent leaf,
when it was taken
out, well the
table wasn’t
properly
squeezed and it takes two
pressing against
their bellies and she,
well you know,
she’s just one. And the old
table, before
the fire, could and would
open up like
warm spoons in cold
grease—but this
one—well—she can
lift it,
barely, and sweep at least, under
it, all that
potting soil and random
clay shards and
more geraniums and
the leaking
spit of aloe
tips—the whole
kitchen is
broken, all the
chairs shoved aside
to make room
for the ambulance
gurney whose wheeled
tracks in the
sand and soil
lead all the
way back
to the
bedroom. It’s not going
the way it
ought to. There’s just
a broom and her
long reach. Pushing
in and under,
pulling out:
ü
a
pair of wadded
up
underpants. womens. soiled.
bloodied.
ü
a
single row
of teeth, half a set of dentures.
soiled. bloodied.
ü
cigarette
bent like a neck
to
the chest.
half
smoked.
ü
dry,
long fallen off the table,
food. steak maybe.
too far gone for the dog.
ü
unpaid
bills.
ü
moths’
bodies.
ü
a
wad of cat sick.
In Fantasia, she thinks, brooms
and buckets move
all by
themselves. Mechanical.
The music can’t
be won’t be
shut off. She sifts through piles
of dirt, deciding
what goes where
and in what
soak. And outside,
though she can’t
know, a doe
noses against
the seedling beets
and nibbles
and moves on.
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