Leave the Dishes
(with thanks to Louise
Erdrich for use of some lines from her poem of the same name)
Leave the dishes.
Let the oranges
rot in the fridge with their greenish spots of mold, along with
the cantaloupe and the celery. Leave the sugar spilled on the counter. Let the
ants in for a
sweet fest. Leave the grime thick
in the sink, the bed not made
for
days on end. Let your junk drawer,
full of batteries, old prescription
drugs, the
one paper napkin from McDonalds stay as junk.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth.
Send off a
rocket to your sky and steer it towards the moon.
Talk back to what hold
you in place, to the thing that inherits
your earth,
then move towards the clay you came from, that
makes you proud.
Don’t worry about the sandals in your closet that are eight
years old,
that
one framed picture of your old boyfriend, the permanent
stain in your favorite coffee mug.
Don’t worry who uses whose toothbrush or if anything matches
at all.
Except one word to another.
Or a thought.
Pursue the
authentic—decide first what is authentic, then go after
it
with all your heart. Your heart
that sends its soldiers into your
body to find your truth.
Don’t sort the
socks that don’t match from the ones that do,
Or worry about separating the loose coins from the peace
sign key chain
you
found one day on a walk. Don’t
ever wear yellow latex gloves or
clean the blinds that carry the dusts of years.
Accept new forms of life and talk to the dead
who draft in
through screened windows, who stand in lines
on each side of the
hallway, who encourage you as you walk
from room to room. Wait two more weeks before you vacuum
or don’t vacuum for a month or a
year. Don’t do anything.
Except what destroys the insulation
between yourself and your
experience, or what pulls down or what strikes or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
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