MAYA NORDINE
After the U-Haul
I’ve grown wider—new freckles squish themselves in, push apart my bones. Making room for more me. I moved to the sunny place. Where you need a car to get around. Perfect for me, because I have no license. No knowledge of traffic laws. No drive to learn. I stir inside, convincing myself a full day can be made by doing nothing at all. Strike up the idea to make something, sinking fingers into clay, remaking the same shape over and over again, smoothing out the imperfections my finger prints leave behind with each touch. It’s crazy how much I want to be in the ground sometimes. Boxes empty and pile up against the trash bins. My new building’s maintenance man won’t take down our broken-down boxes. He shouldn’t have to, he says. I want to help him. I really do. But I can’t muster it. I’m sorry, Perry! I scrawl in permanent marker under MISCELLANEOUS. This time I really mean it, since it makes no difference anyway. I want to shrink myself small, tuck myself in with them, confusing embarrassment with despair.
Maya Nordine is a poet and copywriter with poems published or forthcoming in Hobart After Dark, The American Journal of Poetry, Silk Road Review, TYPO, and others. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her fiancé Paul Cherry and their dog Ms. Pickles.