Avery

Convinced, Avery sat with the yellowed

Sears catalogue in her lap, her mother’s

Instruction still nasally in her ear.

“This is what we’d use to order what we wanted.”

Curious at who the “we” were and the no-show

That was “needed,” Avery imagined a world

Where she could order what she wanted too.

Maybe a man who knew a door only for coming in

Instead of going out. Maybe a man whose only goal

Was to gray with time and sag as she sagged

And to laugh at all the memories and moments

That led up to the visual decay because what else

Can you do but laugh at death?

Instead, she had known men who walked

Through the revolving “out” door, and laughed

Only at her sagging and sad attempt to stuff

Everything into a skin-tight girdle, a trussed turkey,

As they found that door and loitered in a world

Avery was never invited to. She picked at the pages,

Yellowed with time and all the wanting of the collective

“We” and heard her mother’s “See how they leave you?”

And Avery never would give the slightest indication

That maybe there was something more there

Even her mother didn’t know.