Home Depot
Maslen Bode Ward
HOME DEPOT
My suitcase is still in the trash bag
I put it in a year ago
when I came back from a trip
where someone thought
they got bed bugs.
I haven’t opened the bag since
except to go to Paris
but then I was worried again
so I put the suitcase back
in the trash bag and it’s been there
the last ten months which is about
the time I’ve been
dating my new boyfriend.
I guess he’s not new anymore.
He feels both new and old like
I’m definitely going to have
his babies and also every fight
is our biggest one yet.
On Thursday I bought a pair
of pink shoes with feathers on them
one of which fell off at the store and I
started to hesitate but Sabrina
told me to get them.
You can glue them back on she said
but I can’t. She says she stomps
into a party and I shove.
This may be true. Like how
I always think I’m pregnant
even though I’m on birth control
which prevents pregnancy
by tricking my body
into thinking it’s pregnant.
I’m generally nervous and once Jack said
it’s nice to see you like this—I was
talking rapidly while
pulling cookies out of the oven and saying
I know I seem manic—and I said
like what? manic? and he said well
normally you say things like
I’ve never been less anxious.
So this is nice. I don’t know about shoving
into a party, maybe it’s more
like elbowing. It’s like
she has eyes in the back of her head
some people say
though not about me
a woman who left all her laundry
at the laundromat for three days
when she thought she had bed bugs
because she couldn’t face picking it up
and then it was stolen.
In the movie I watched today
which my boyfriend hasn’t
asked me about yet
someone says Happiness is desiring
what you already have. I desire
eyes on the front of my head.
The woman in the movie
tells her lover she daydreams about him
opening her door and only twice
in twenty years did he open it
at the exact moment she imagined.
Only twice she says and I know
she is about to die.
I tell Sabrina that since dating
I’m always worried about my boyfriend dying
but I think my friends are immortal.
She says that’s because with a lover
you can imagine a breakup
and that is like death.
And you can’t imagine that with me.
I say let’s stop talking about this.
I am baking cookies all the time
because I finally feel free enough
to love the things my mother loves.
I watched her pull thousands of cookies
out of the oven and now on my first try
I cook them almost perfectly.
Sometimes you can learn by watching.
Sometimes you can also learn
by doing, and I’ve been doing it,
I’ve been asking my boyfriend
for what I want.
People could learn something
from watching me love.
But you should do whatever you want.
—Maslen Bode Ward
