waste not after Waste Not (2005), Song Dong.

the man has kept everything his mother
ever owned

i can see it from up here on the
mezzanine, where i am finding that

i’m twelve and yet i really do care
about the insides of things

that i don’t yet know that
that tends to require medication, like

row upon row of pill bottles, coke
bottles, bottles that creep

up the property line beyond the
wooden shell of a home, and

i hear the past tense greet the now
like walking down a pier

forever –

a sea of whiteware algae blooming
out of the concrete floor all misplaced

manhattan, all containers buckets lines of soap bits

a thesis in plastic

in television sets small tables tools that kept the whole world on

its axis.

my child body from above is
looking down on empty toothpaste

on tubes and boxes, it’s the
opposite of patronising

it’s the whole
kitchen sink

it’s reading the sign that says
this man’s mā was sad

because everybody goes
away, in the end

and so she holds onto the
mess they made, instead.

waste not want not
this is a habitat for a

burnt disc a birdcage a
family

and i might be a baby but
i’m tempted to stroke it

to go down there and
get inside it

to see if it makes sense
or makes a monument

or just makes a
mother;

i’m looking at all the
colours

that a life makes up

i’m looking at
how many pairs of shoes

you have to wear through
to the sole to know

where your body
begins.