PERSEVERANCE STATE

The neighbor called the house a box to put one’s belongings. I lived for months on two or three casserole recipes. They involved canned cream of mushroom. They involved the yield to feed dozens. I lived alone. We became believers in suspending conversation from light sockets, unwired. We believed in one-time offers. This place wasn’t built for the nightly news or the phases of the moon. I promise to move back to the perseverance state where the mailman reads the house numbers backwards.

I carry the misdelivered power bills through a thirty percent chance of broken Snapple bottles. We kept the lids, clicked them against our fingers. The newsletters discovered the power of a good cancellation. I believed, despite crime dogs and fried egg brains on drugs, that to postpone a basketball game was to invite the chaos of the day-old bakery. It involved smiley face stickers. It involved a three-wheeled shopping cart. The neighbor called the garage fridge a safe to put one’s clearance finds.