203 Amity
 

Flip-flops slap paint-peeled porch
steps, and skirt sticks to humid summer
thighs as I follow you forward on Baltimore sidewalks.
Checking notepad, paper address, and faded metal
signs directing us down horse drawn buggy-sized
streets, backtracking and veering, one-way arrows
instruct cars, but add distance for walking feet. Suddenly,
rumpled girl perched in short shorts shouts,
“You lookin’ for Poe’s house?” Confused, suspicious,
clutching camera and purse, we follow her
shadow through the right-sided alley.
203 Amity eyes our approach somberly.
Old-aged bricks of gloom in a sad standstill
enclose thin doors and steeper stair to his attic
room. Barely width to stand erect in the gable’s middle,
single window casts panes of stifling heat,
slight desk and bed fill in between
plastered wall and planked floor. Poems
and stories flow onto curling edged paper
by dimness and darkness into death
by delirium. Though “The Raven” was not
written within these slants, it was spoken here.





Trash Bag Burial
 
When I was young, I collected odd things to remind me of moments—snapshots of friends, napkins with signatures and doodles, pieces of ribbon, Roland Orzabal’s comb, dried flowers hung upside down by a pushpin, newspaper clippings, mini bottles, candy wrappers, concert ticket stubs, restaurant receipts—mementos that littered the shelves and wall above my Curtis Mathes rent-to-own stereo. I spent many hours mooning the past, the moments that seemed pivotal to existence, the items that made me. Just a blip on the timeline later, what made me became dust collectors, muddied up the little space I had, complicated what I’d become. I didn’t think much of it, as I shook the folded trash bag, rushing it with air to create an opening for their burial. I pulled them roughly, tore from beneath pins, raked from shelves, and turned my head as the dust flew and the bag dropped heavily. I paused as I held the comb. It still smelled foolish, like ’80s hair mousse.