1:15pm
the dishwasher takes
one hour and forty-five minutes
from start to finish
i am a responsible person
load and unload
dishes and in-between
i stay home and make lunch
i drink all the milk out
of my cereal bowl
i wish it was still morning
but it is tuesday afternoon
and i am alone with these
clean chipped dishes
i know where every one goes
as a kid i was taught about
heaven and hell
and to be a good girl
the dishes had to be fully dry
before i put them away
a ritual
is a process
with meaning
the sign of the cross
is no loading and unloading but
if i can make my responsibility
a ritual a process a purpose
then i am doing
meaning everyday and that is good
but my mind is uneven
and it is capable
of love and sadness
at the exact same time
i don’t know how that is possible
it is three
and the dishwasher is clean
and that is sad
in a final sort of way
Function
i shave away the unnecessary
hair on my legs
i no longer rely on my body
outdated
outsourced
manufactured jeans
that can protect me better
than my body
is something
like history
like the first model
of childhood
hairs moving with the breeze
it is hard to use my body
in the way it is made
to function
Green Screen
sometimes i want to see a polished person
and i feel dirty for wanting that
a good woman wants to see her
reality depicted
but i see a made up
done up
kristen stewart
standing there
i feel myself wanting
scared because
she’s nothing
like me and
i am capable of worship
not on purpose but
i can’t help but be
programmed
pre-set
i am born out of ritual
in and out and in and
i come out
of something physically
smaller than a closet
but a closet nonetheless
i tell my mother
i am the only thing i will carry
because my jeans
my jeans
are boys
are baggy
and sometimes
i want tighter
because the fad
the kristen stewart
fad i cannot help
but see
the girl on my tv
as more ideal than
i cannot get over the wanting
that comes from these beings
shot for the screen
Laura Buccieri is getting her MFA at the New School. She has most recently been published in FORTH magazine.