I.
The kitchen
used to be a closet
so plastic bags
jars, tattered packages
zip lighters
and fly swatters
are all an arm’s length away.
Functional, colorful
the rusty living
kitchen.
II.
The hallway
hung with wide shelves
that are filled
like it’s still the war
and still photographs
wait, waning, soaking dust.
Save everything, everything
has multiple meanings.
Postcards are paintings,
echoes, and timepieces.
III.
Hard bedrooms
bedrooms are made from spaces
made safe, a cave, a secret place.
A bed is a couch is a table,
whatever prescribed purpose
I still sleep. Laying
looking at the china closet,
the crocheted pictures
the modest carved cross
an afterthought, the heater
like a cabinet to the past,
heavy and ceramic. The windows
rattle because we are on street level
and voices from strangers
are close, a public room.
IV.
Black feet from walking
will stain the tub. Then you are
scrubbing both feet and tub.
Skin used to suffocate
in the blackness of the air,
the imperceptible
precipitation of pollution.
Clean yourself, the bite
of old soap, weak-tasting toothpaste
rough pink toilet paper like newsprint.
To shower you need to squat
and hold the water spigot
like a microphone,
like a child learning to wash.
Thank you for capturing my memories of the apartment and etching them in stone.
ReplyDeleteThe line that deserves to be said aloud: "the imperceptible precipitation of pollution"
I initially thought that the length of the stanzas corresponded with the sizes of the rooms, but then you ended with the bathroom. Curious why?
I'm not sure why I ended with the bathroom. It is a highly overlooked room in general, even though we use it as much as a kitchen or bedroom. Maybe because we do the less dignified human processes in a bathroom, then say, a bedroom, it seems weird to dedicate energy to describing it. But I like the Zagreb bathroom. It's wonderfully uncomfortable. I actually love that apartment. Very much. I think it's the smell. Soup, cement, lavender, moth balls. Heaven.
ReplyDelete"Like a child learning to wash" is such a perfect, vivid image. Well done.
ReplyDelete