from Weekend Shifts
The store is pristine.
The wires from the dock
meet the wires from each speaker
in a power strip
at the base of the scuffed wall.
I’m the one who cleans the single room
which grows larger as I use my minutes,
so I know where the rare filth sticks.
A pocket of air trapped
between my damp hair and neck
disperses when I pull it up,
twist it, and let it fall again.
Each book is covered in mylar
and marked in languid pencil with a price.
I put off shelving the widest, heaviest stacks.
A man walks into the empty store.
Speech.
He comes to the side
closest to my exit,
rather than the designated place
where customers know to line up
directly across from me.
He leans on the counter,
his shoe near my backpack.
He tells me he’s a director, spitting.
His teeth are the color of glue.
Trapped, I think of a dentist
paid to look inside his mouth.
I try looking through him
but he’s loud.
Stiff second to second
I will him out
then roll my eyes as he leaves.
I lift myself, drained, staring out.
Minutes later, an unread email
surfaces in the static info@ inbox.
I don’t recognize the name, but it’s him:
Emily,
I want to open you up like an orchid and discover the actress you are
I move through the store
spraying, wiping,
tightening the displays,
pushing time forward,
forty dollars in.
No one has bought anything yet.
Earlier, a woman walked in high
and signed the eNews list
with triangles and jagged lines.
She then circled the store, stealing gold pens.
Heavy light, somewhere in her things.
The entrance behind me
a hole to my back
open to passersby, as I looked
down the block at her hair.
*
I slip a neon notebook
wrapped in plastic
into a paper bag
and give a guy his change.
Pages with no air between them.
My mood is light;
bits of rock and dust
fall all along
the steel shelf of greeting cards.
Over the next several hours
more will fall, so I’ll let it gather
sitting relatively still
as the building’s gutted
and the white smell of the wall’s inside
grows stronger.
Once the slamming and shaking stops
I'll take all the cards off,
hold the sliding stack in my arms,
wipe each shelf in long strokes,
return them to their original order
and throw the blackened paper towel
into the street trash can.
I don’t want to have to do it twice.
*
My shift is almost over.
There are 6 minutes left until 7.
The music will stop
when I close the app,
and I’ll hear my steps more clearly.
*
I rotate the OPEN sign
and turn out the lights
as three cars inch toward the intersection,
shining and similar, like a family.
I see for the first time
across from the liquor store
a globular tree with a hole
cut from the dense mass of its branches
for the telephone wires to pass through.
The hole near me
like a hidden planet.
Its shape changes when I move,
white light collapsing into the leaves.
I squat down at the entrance.
Teetering over the soiled ridges
of my flat shoes,
their soles worn smooth,
I struggle to stick my tiny gold key
into the padlock
while holding my cracked phone.
I give in, putting it face down on the ground.
When my foot moves,
the phone shifts, grazing black gum
and my body lifts as it does.
Gossip
Commonwealth Restaurant, Oakland, 2016
Melissa was Rose
And Rose was kind of Christy
Then Christy moved up
God I don’t even know who my boss is
Annie left me high and dry
I heard Liz cried
When she heard about Annie
Cuz she was planning to make Annie
Like higher
To move her up
To give us something we can actually look at
