Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
BUT FIRST*
after Erin Adair-Hodges
First there was the word and the word was trying.
Trying the apartment with white walls, popcorn ceilings,
footsteps heavy above, thudding over our days.
Trying the job I took filing papers into squeaking cabinets,
the one you took answering phones for dentists. Trying
the brown bag lunches with limp sandwiches
and sliced cheese, the softening apple, the room-temperature
soda. Consuming it all on church steps, hunched below
the overhang as it rained. Trying the cold pool after work
with dead insects needing to be netted. Unraveling towels,
TJ Maxx suits, the walk back on the no-car driveway.
All heat evaporated. Empty stomachs. No one wanted what the other craved.
Trying the red Chevrolet with the bad battery, no parking without pay,
the bus rides to and from work, your stop, my stop, the sun hitting hard,
us squinting at the sky. Your last day, the blue electric toothbrush
they gave you as goodbye. Buzzing in your mouth with all those
trapped words. Trying the new queen mattress
we could not afford but bought anyway.
Trying the laundry we toted to the next
building, plastic hampers in our
arms full of every day’s dirt.
Coffee but no creamer,
bread but no toaster,
sugar hardened in the bag.
Day-old everything bagels,
buy-one, get-one veggie burritos,
dollar theater on Sundays.
New job but less pay, new boss
but no promotion. Saving for tickets
for never vacations.
Trying the places we gave up for each other:
city salted by an ocean, all those fish and ferry rides;
town with three stoplights, two policemen,
a forest to get lost in. Your dreams, my dreams,
weeds by the parking lot. Trying
your face a broken banister,
my hands an unused map.
*The first nine words are borrowed from “Portrait of Mother: 1985” by Erin Adair-Hodges