Published in Whisper July 2011

The Spare Part Unused Mercantile

Chimes: I recognize the handshake’s click
between palm and dial-up modem. Mourn
the aisles: pay phones, beepers, and celebrities

(Shatner and James van der Beek) who now cameo in movies
as themselves.
I’m here to buy ribs, tires, change.

Find old diseases: smallpox, polio
having been replaced by superbugs and ebola –
quaking and reeling.

I find my old toothbrush in aisle four, touch plastic (replaced
by electric) muscle. It coughs, swallows a Ricola. Still pretty,
it tells me. Don’t ever lose your necessity.

The objects fall in real-needs love/
meaningless sex with other objects.
They have trouble sleeping: You are not wanted.

Hear you are not needed
in the places where people spend money. Which is
everywhere.

I find dodo birds and dinosaurs in Aisle 7.
I still can’t find my purple sweater, or

the flaked-off memories
of touched-body
shaped like fluted boats. What was once

a vague sheet is now
a quilt, seams waning inward
like spoons.

My body feels
too animal
and not enough machine.