Maze Dwellers

“I’ll be the water main that's burst and flooding
You'll be by the window, only watchin'” - Mitski in The Only Heartbreaker

I recognized his Craigslist mistress eyeing me with her toddler on her hip.
She’s wearing a wool hat in the middle of the goddamn summer
at the East Nashville farmers market.
She put her hands in my bag of gluten free crackers,
spilling them all over the ground.
I ask her if her son is allergic to nuts.
She steps back, takes a deep breath and exhales
“He can eat anything.”
I feed him apricot almond butter on a Ritz cracker.
She disappears just before a country music
singer shows up with her Food Network film crew
asking me for a discount

xxx

Fast forward 8 years, I haven’t left the city.
We agreed she would.
“A sunset is a sunset. How many of them can you see?”
I recognize her voice. She’s ordering a long
pour & making dementia jokes.
I bet when she’s at home she drinks out of a Beaver-branded
tumbler that says “Mommy Juice”
& uses coupons at Applebees.

xxx

Me and your kind,
we were trained to eat each other alive.
Inside and outside
of the church basement,
It doesn’t please me to insult you.
I’m only here to say who you were to me.
You should never have been in my house.