Living Quarters

1

The actor cast as an actor rehearses a private smile, souring at the corners. In the vanity, her image triples in front of a film crew in front of the film crew. 

I like to think I can truly see her—not despite, but exaggerated by her make up and the clash of her vertically patterned dress against the French, floral wallpaper, so unlike flowers—all ornate. 

The roses in the bouquet rest on the counter of the vanity in a porcelain vase, some might call “china,” conflating material with place.

I cut a line down the white stem of the cabbage, and when I pull the stem apart, the inner yellow leaves unlatch willingly, though their intricate, complementary folds and the reverberations at my fingertips question this willingness.  

The protagonist then takes the flower vase and antagonistically holds it above her head. The prop becomes the plot. The flowers, a threat.

I cut the cabbage halves in half and pull them into quarters, certain this time. The quarters don’t become copies of each other, and they don’t become opposites either. 

2

My dream was dull. I was stuck in a life at a made-up greenhouse along the foothills. I was known and obligated to say hello to the regulars.

I put on the previous tenant’s lipstick from the uncanceled cosmetic subscription that arrives monthly in the mail. The shade is clay after sunset, dark with water the roots don’t take.

On the phone, the Department of Economic Security pop-quizzes me on my identity, which I fail and am told to call back, and try again. 

One day I will understand how to spend the scarcity of time. 

I reread the Immigration Inspector’s scripted command that someone point to my great-grandparents’ graves as evidence of my grandfather’s life—a response that the graves, even then, over one hundred years ago, were faintly numbered. 

The cemetery is all fog. Lichen rings over etched characters and a view of the mall. Scent of ancient fir trees and fast-food oil. The hillside swallows the graves. The headstones face down. 


I’m illiterate in this language of what time wears.