Bleecker Street

Last night I visited our first apartment. My pink rug, the bedroom with your ribbed white sheets, roaches in all the best spots. Lapping light from our torn-up shutters. Sharing the dinner you made each evening. Like moments before an earthquake when animals aren’t themselves: roaches strolling to the coolest corners, lice sighing in delight, and you coming down the hall in my dress and earrings. The path began to split. Heat on my neck. As you sat behind me, applying Vamousse and pulling a comb through my hair, the lice were out of their minds. You held each body and traced the half-moons of their bellies. You pressed down. They wouldn’t die.