Published in Borderline Poetry and Ascent Aspirations

We Spend So Much of Our Time Going In and Out of Bathrooms

I search every ladies’ room in New York City. The toilets look like
upside-down teardrops on a dirty face. At night in the bars

the restrooms are smoky-discreet, waiting rooms for the homeless. I stopped
putting up the signs —Have You Seen Gretel? — having found them defaced

with word-slurry, marks drawn on her photocopied mouth that make her look
like she’s drowning. The immaculate bathrooms are most offensive:

chrome, sensitive like teeth, a reminder of what is not there. I used to carry
a flashlight, shined it in the eye of each sink and towel dispenser. Two questions,

who are you looking for and who do you think you’re fooling? an attendant asked me.
She told me the bathroom is no joking matter, that nobody hides here.

I thought I saw my sister in a gas station stop by the West Side Highway in the corner stall,
knees on the ground like a mix of tile and legs was some gritty topography.

Her hands, two kernels clutching the rim. Her body looked like an abandoned house.
I knew it wasn’t her, but gave her a slice of bread that she ripped into pieces.