She brushes her teeth with the day’s mop water.
She burns the furniture legs in the barbecue grill.
She mails last year’s Christmas cards to the senders
by return service this year. She drives there and
walks back. She runs the neighbor’s garden hose
through the kitchen window to her sink. She stores
perishables on top of the refrigerator for more
refrigerator space. She launches a campaign to replace
“Keeping Up with the Joneses” with “Serve Your Neighbor
for Dessert.” She bathes her babies in the tub with her
on top of the soaking dirty bed linens. She turns the guest
bathroom into a storage closet for paper supplies
bought on sale, two-for-one. She feeds her digits—
fingers and toes—to her dogs. She gives free condiments
collected from the 7-Eleven’s self-service coffee station
as gifts for friends and family (when she remembers
their birthdays). She checks out public library books
to burn for heating the house. She eats later and later
until later never comes. She conserves daylight by sleeping
most days. She signs her end-of-life directive,
choosing to be buried alive. In her next life,
she becomes Spanish moss—living in the trees,
harvesting all her nourishment from the air.
