debt ritual: trash
if nostalgia is one way to die
then having things is one way to live forever
if the unabated present is a sun that is bearing down on us
a home is a place where objects collect
if minimalism is beautiful it is
because of the cheekbones of those who can afford to buy things a second time
it is true I have had the same trash can in my kitchen
since 1986
it is true the house fills with wistfulness
it is true that I could buy a new trash can with the money I have
regardless what does a trash can have to do with class
this one is mustard yellow plastic and lidless
like a poet might say the night sky is
like we might say the American summer is
or the market’s growth frankly meteoric
rocketing moon money
or I want there to be less trash
and so I kept it my whole life
filled the house
all that came to me
for free or with money
from someone or with debt
since that is one way to make money
nostalgic o! yesterday’s money
I’ll pay for tomorrow
and all the things I’ll keep
debt ritual: co-op
walking something you could spend all day doing
me at 23 working my co-op shift in the rain
walking people and their groceries home
then walking the carts back to the store
there is a radius of blocks through which we walk
I live beyond this radius and carry large boxes
the mile and a half home alone to save
the bus fare I’m not great at this form to
stay in one day the light rain and so quiet
streets collapse the time across decades
the bus passing watching oblique avenues
cut Brooklyn into neighborhoods watch
Buffalo crop up one way another block
to block a mark of my work has been
contingency the lack of an office building
or being free to stay home on weekdays
to work my shifts among the other adults left
at home mothers with money psychologists
working evenings retired transit workers
the strange exhaustion of being at rest
of the neighborhood made quiet by midday
lay over everything like a cold layer of slush
was the brightness of going on unnoticed this way
into adulthood moving freely through these possible streets