Clutter

I love your walls.  You buy colorful pushpins in big buckets at discount stores and you stab them through the junk you find at the bottom of your knapsack or deep in the pockets of your old overcoats.  There isn’t a bit of white paint that I can still see. I sit at the end of your bed, your floral sheets bunched up over my thighs.  I make a list of your things when I can’t find my muse, while you wash pearl pink dye from your hair in the bathroom sink.

paper cranes
thrift store receipts
beer coasters
movie tickets
dead flowers
newspaper clippings
a whole newspaper page
napkins
love notes
condom wrappers
a miniature rubber chicken, pinned right through its neck
prayer cards
polaroids
price tags
tax forms
poetry
dry typewriter ribbons
fabric, wood and lace shards
strings of pearl
cigarette boxes
spent teabags

I listen to the water running and imagine the pink water whirling around your ankles.  I lay back and read articles from the 60’s on yellowed newsprint, searching for my muse in between the faded lines. 

And then she walks through the door with dripping hair and pins pink-dye stained gloves to a spot above the door.