House or Home by Sarah Crockford

The garage sale the day we left was a blur,

 

childish haze clouds judgment, you say,

and so this memory molds to your better liking

 

something about sharing with others what’s easy to keep,

but not so easy to take.

 

Today, I put up for sale each one of my fingers,

then my toes, the tips of my lashes,

a fragment of my spine.

 

I lay them neatly on the grass.

 

You don’t want to buy that without which I could still stay alive.

 

We haggle over parts marked for purchase,

you insist on those I keep hidden inside.

 

My head spins – I haven’t:

 

packed the kitchen,

 

folded the clothes,

wrapped the glassware in wrinkled paper.

 

I sigh. You smile. Resistance is soft under pressure of time.

 

Name your price, I say,

anyway, I leave in the morning.

 

And like that,

you hold a collection of tissue and disused organs in your hands.

 

I hand you a towel to wipe the blood off your forearm.

 

You remark how hard that stain will be to come out in the wash.

Something about a cold water cycle and salt.

 

You chide me for not taking notes

so when finally you do leave, that towel lands straight in the trash.

 

A small chunk of brain hugs a rotting pear

nestled in disused plastic and clumps of hair.

 

I sift through pieces of my flesh,

 

making sure this time nothing is left behind.

 

But I’ll forget to take the trash out in the morning –

 

the next inhabitant will complain of how this place,

years down the line,

still reeks of my departure.