The Edges of Things
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When the New People Came

Picture
​When the New People Came
published The Blue Nib literary Magazine, August 2020

When the new people came
my box painstakingly packed and labeled with the threat
Touch This and Perish

full of words I wasn’t done using yet
words that stuck to me
begging for me to find the meaning

sought asylum
any haven
among the detritus

the piles of self-replicating hangars
the lidless Rubbermaid containers
the socks and hats no one ever wears

the substance of survival
a matrix for participation
but not of existence

trailed behind us
leaking from us for months
into ever shifting piles

When the new people came
drawers were cleared of cries and calls
sorted to donate or to keep

as I sobbed
and breathed the scent of Brogan clinging to a
GAP 4T sweatshirt I found shoved behind

the shattered drawer of the changing table
warped and dinged with
resolutions I cling to still

When the new people came
there scrapped by the side of the road
were the sliced up 4 feet by 4 feet remains

of carpeting stained with Eamon’s blood
a monument in defense of letting kids learn
to handle sharp pointy things

and adult things silly and destructive
needing to be hauled away to
the cemetery of illusions

that you can manufacture a child
that normalcy is peace
that someone will tell you the way

When the new people came
our shelves had given over
unpolluted remembrances

without blot or contamination
grains of sand, shark’s teeth, postcards, hundreds of fossils
sanctuaried and padded by the four

handmade blankets crafted by the Women’s Guild
for kids hospitalized at Christmas
for our kid who fought off campaigns of hostile takeovers

by domainless viruses
by misdiagnosis
by medication side effects

When the new people came
our walls were bare
exposed and that jagged hole in the upstair’s drywall

from the hard-plastic oversized hippo
I chucked
in anger over my insufferable inadequacies

had vanished
mended and remedied
understanding the need to retreat

rather than to fight
left scars though
and a hard memory

When the new people came
our rugless hallways creaked
unfamiliar messages

echoey and sticky with paint
the scent of our soap and our food and candles
and our sheltered seasons

crammed in the oily garage
stacked and labeled like you can
ever name a life

or gather it
or accumulate it
or capture it

When the new people came
my Roses of Sharon
witness to 4 am nursings of all kinds

eavesdropper to hot tub convos under Orion
victim of airsoft wars
supervisor of the time the shed nearly burned down

consoler during the death of my beloved willow
bystander while I didn’t lie but
made the truth, begged me to be resolute

When the new people came
the wooden stairway railing worn smooth
and warm under our grasps

Held me steady for the last ascent
the last descent released my hand a final time
while my husband urged me to leave

admitting that we could not complete
the move in one day
we were laying in piles everywhere

I was sent on

When the new people came
I was gone
fumbling around in the new darkness

for light switches
for boxes of extension cords
for bags of goldfish

in rooms with no memories of us
and wads of cat hair
free floating everywhere

a flashlight in my hand
My Touch This and Perish
box under my arm

and nothing more than
my name
in my mouth.
 

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  • Something You Don't Know Yet - Chapbook with ShabdAaweg Press
  • Buy Chapbook Something You Don't Know Yet at ShabdAaweg Press
  • About
  • Contact
  • Mouthful of Storm- Wild Roof Journal/lyrical prose
  • This Blood Is Beautiful-Wishbone Words/CNF
  • No One Writes About Agnes-The Red Fez Literary Magazine/CNF
  • Mine-Hearth & Coffin/CNF
  • The Elephants Only I Can See-TMP Magazine, Lyrical Prose
  • Dust-Miniskirt Magazine/CNF
  • The Woman With Mice-Misery Tourism/Fiction
  • How to Wake Up Feeling Dangerous-Anti Heroin Chic Magazine/Poetry
  • Bone World-Prometheus Dreaming/lyrical prose
  • I Know a Wall When I See One - Tangled Locks Journal/CNF
  • Animal Instinct- Pangyrus Literary Magazine/CNF
  • Tick-HerStry/CNF
  • Handler-Anti-Heroine Chic Magazine/CNF
  • When the East Wind Comes-Months to Years Literary Journal/CNF
  • The Man with the Round Tomatoes in the Square Baskets-Prometheus Dreaming/CNF
  • Pandemically Yours
  • Chariotless God-Kalopsia Literary Journal/CNF
  • The Dead Are Holding Something Back-Prometheus Dreaming/CNF
  • The Carving Tree-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Along Third Street-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Me Going Gone-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • For Grief and For Ironing-The Feminine Collective/lyrical prose
  • When the New People Came-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • At the Mercy of my Own Forgetting-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • The Rent I Pay-Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • By the Dead Purple Lady-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Unbearably Gone-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Evidence of a Struggle-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Your Phone Call-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Sylvie of the Stone Stoop-Intermission/poetry
  • Charlie's Assessment-Intermission/poetry
  • Signed, Legally Ryn-Intermission/poetry
  • It's Been Raining-Intermission/poetry
  • Fingerprint Failure-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Bolstered by the Flask-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Hear Them Bleeding Hope-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I'm Partial-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Inside Out Pain-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Probably Confabulations-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine-poetry
  • Revenant Gloam-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Lies Heavy-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mark of the Empty-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Barely Aloof-Poet's Haven Digest Anthology, The Distance Between Insanity and Genius/poetry
  • Fata Morgana-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Time Will Spend Us-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I Cannot Make Permanent Things-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Silence Necessary-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Tidally Locked-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Blue, I Think-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Revenant Gloam-The Write Launch Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Swiftly Flying Shadow Bands-The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Apostle of Disbelief-Poet's Haven Digest, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night AnthologPublished in The Poet’s Haven Digest Anthology, Strange Land and in The Blue Nib Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Measurable Objective-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Cacti Toucher-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Mean Free Path-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • I am a Bridge-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • A Gurney for Me-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • Just the Other Stuff-The Feminine Collective/poetry
  • A Valid Exit-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetryu
  • Everything Hard is Tangled-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • On Zillow-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Out by the Shed-Impspired Literary Magazine/poetry
  • Press