to a dozen glue guns, a case of Brillo pads,

jars of preserves. But—coffee cans

of chewed up chewing gum

is why he resided alone.

•

Notice that the simplest often yields the most:

OBJECT: body, doodad, meaning, purpose,

hope, butt, . . . to mind and to resist.

The theory itself yields: Pinky-Bear,

Blankie, Sock-Puppet, Nightmare.

•

Objection? Outside a neighboring clinic

three fundamentalists wait

to shoot the doctor at point-blank range.

Meantime, Father saw Medusa

on the clothes line, under the sink,

in a tureen of string beans.

•

He drew the mythic ball of live hair

that no one can stand or he’ll turn to stone.

Then there’s cherry-red on her toes.

Then there’s his own weekend Father

taking him to see “Boxing Kangaroos”

who turned out to be yawning strippers.

•

On objectification, Marx wrote:

As values, all commodities are only

definite masses of congealed labour time.

Yes, Hamburger Helper, trombone, robot vacuum!

Yes, covert kiwi or flagrant heroin!

•

(As for the coffee can of chewed up chewing gum—

just a necrophile’s faithful rite

to resuscitate a strict mama,

viewed on the Discovery Channel.)

•

After tossing her clothes and cosmetics

I crisscrossed the city on a bus:

peering out at the concrete,

cherry blossoms fell in my hair

from no open window. They piped up,

How much more can a daughter object?

•

Before I swept every speck of you

from the rooms where Father would carry on—

if only I’d saved your brush

with a few strands of silver hair.

Mother, dear object of my despondence,

What more can a daughter bear?

•••

A Little Safe

In a toy safe, I locked

seven glass giraffes from Grandma

once displayed on her credenza.

After she lost her riddled lung,

the hospital lost all her remains.

Or so the story goes.

•

I treasure her charm,

a tiny box housing a dollar—

not that that would get me far in a pinch.

And, speaking of pinches, she said:

Don’t let a boy into your purse.

But, what does a mother rehearse?

•

On Wednesdays, half the fifth grade

left for Catechism Class, each

to learn to save my soul

as if the chest, a cathedral. When

a cousin stepped out on his wife,

I called his other woman a buttress

and added, You’d best send her flying.

•

What I locked in my school locker

besides pop quizzes marked C,

a velvet coat, and Tiger Beats:

a locket. From no one.

Like evidence in a cold case file

of thirteen hacked-up call girls.

•

If I could visit Antarctica

I’d visit a penguin papa on his long-winded stint

warming an egg on his feet. Still,

a girl should not show her pieds ever

when around her father.

•

Yes, even in unkind terrain

the girl felt okay on a trek with a coyote

until they reached the apathetic border

and her heart broke off

its eight years of beating. The same

for the boy in the trunk. For