quarantine has led me to realize the chaotic power of household objects, bouncing me off the walls of my apartment. “clean us,” the dirty dishes flash. “the longer you wait the harder it gets.” “water us,” the plants chime. “also, we need to be repotted.” “feed me,” my cat intimates, rubbing against the pantry door and ignoring her still-full bowl of food. “remember me,” my grandmother’s face gleams at me in front of my desk, next to a photo of my now-dead dog. “also you should probably call me sometime.”
this might be what a home sounds like to a mother, that all-too-often one-person-stage-crew operating behind the set of domesticity. beginning to find myself entangled in the same psychic roots as those who continue to find it difficult to sit still, accept help, or seek solitude in their waning age — who continue taking the end-of-dinner cue, gathering the dishes over the heads of their well-muscled children, ignoring the chorus of complaints from their own bones’ ache, thinking, it keeps one young.
hog maw 