Cooked, the socks, the pantry stocked,
Thanksgiving dinner for twenty.
Crab apples around the turkey on a platter I’d serve
Modeled from a photograph.
I was modeled on a photograph.
Clean floor, it was perfect.
One exact book on the table, dust it.
I slipped on spilled bath water and broke bones.
I spilled bleach on a shirt.
I wore a cast.
I looked into the dark: bad mother, bad lover.
Polished wood. Scrubbed tub.
Like peering at a daguerreotype, that past
Is a technique I don’t use anymore.
A trifling thing: housework, being sure.
Who would climb to save me?
The giant came and went, stepped on me, spent.