Known

after Juan Lopez-Bautista’s Sketchbook: Processes and Collages 

The woman behind the register is redoing her backsplash.

I am the woman when every song is a third trip back

to Home Depot, forgotten caulk alongside misheard lyric,

terra cotta tile, a cousin’ birthday – ongoingness

breeds the casualty of unremembered. 

The waking impossibility

of everything, of nothing

halting is truly haunting. 

To save time

there are gadgets like everything

bagel seasoning, the avocado slicer for avocados 

only. I am upset my phone knows where I am going

before I do.

Home Depot again? The house of a succubus 

again?

Instead of slack-jawed scrolling,

of numbing surveillance, I crave being a regular, known 

and unforgotten without exhausting data. 

Known like the way of who’s coming – 

catalogued soundtrack

of footsteps down the stairs.

Have you ever been so lonely, you want to be caught

picking your nose by a neighbor – the embarrassment

of the body is always worth shared intimacy.

Is that not love-making? I can hardly remember.