Under the Rec Room Sofa

Questions about home scrawled all over white looseleaf. A solid black square with a triangle on top, the white word “heart” in all caps in the center. Random pictures of birds: chickadees, nuthatches, a kingfisher tucked into apple blossoms. Ads about women's hair cut out and pasted on – a dozen vintage hairstyles involving curls and wigs. All the women are smiling and wearing lipstick, their eyebrows odd, solid, black and huge. A polaroid of an older shirtless man with glasses. He has yellowish red pimples all over his chest and face. His forearms are dark and hairy, his eyes a little too large and intent. A baseball card with a man in the midst of pitching, one leg up, his face covered with red thread and a leaf. The plastic green garnishes that come with take-out sushi, taped all over the margins.

Pool

We sprawl, belly-down
next to the blue, frying.

Our pinkies touch, do not
touch. We are hipless,

titless, thin as the curled
rinds of tangerines littering

the stairs. Our pink-spangled
bikinis sag, loose as empty

burlap sacks. Our sun-whitened
hair spreads across the stones,

green as new corn, fragrant
as beach trash, as your mother's
stolen perfume.