In the night I realize we’re living in the same apartment building.
All this time! She lives downstairs, in a room filled with cats.
I rush to her—my grandmother, in a total chaos of furniture,
lying on a mattress on the floor.
“No one comes by anymore,” she says. “I’m so bored.”
In her face I can see the unfathomable loneliness
of the dead, like its own failed revolution.
Her body spilling out of a flannel button-down shirt.
Her wrinkled skin pooled
beneath her half-naked body.
The smell of urine is overwhelming.
Different parts of the vacuum cleaner are scattered around
like sniper rifle fittings, fancy small attachments
piled up around the mattress: Sub 20 Universal Brush,
Mini Turbo, the Extra Wide Upholstery sucker—
which I begin to gather and click together—what good is any of it?
“Oh, don’t clean,” she begs from the floor.