spring cleaning and a rondo or two.

its time to clean it all out
let go of the surreptitious vaccinations
and align the flooding vitriol with
stories of plight
memorized,
tales from my father
from his mother
back from the old country
where everyone was spitting poverty
spit fucking poor
every single day

dirt in the nails was the measure of purity
working the land
equated to all signs of goodness
no desire beyond what we gave
and what they gave
and what had been forever given

time to clean the floorboards
from the years of mice
defecating
and the skin
hardened and peeling
and reconstituted into breathable particles
only to be regurgitated later
while sleeping the desperate sleep of a nomad
caught in the wrong place
the wrong time.

lastly i confided in the diaries, the journals, the hidden writing books
of shame
where i secreted substances
that stay and lay hidden
atrophying and collecting themselves around each other
like pearls

time to clean
and breathe
or else the presence of the long-dead living
will take over
in the tiny manhattan apartment
fighting with the blank
strange walls