Under the Sink

The Jameson’s I drank when Bush
was President, a yellow rag,
cracked and fuming, that I used
to wipe the scene the weekend
you disappeared. Too many
skeletons, you said, peering back
at me the last time, a purple band
in your hair. More recently:
a wooden tray in cellophane,
a dead relative: what are things
good for? Making me reach
awkwardly for the dishwasher
crystals—in bold it says the blue
“makes glasses gleam.” Wait
didn’t work; you were gone, a break
as clean as Skyy Vodka. I shot down
that bottle the Saturday
you left with him

on his Honda 350.
My life is under the sink. Ornery
and moldy stuff in plastic bags,
a screw I lost and found again, you
on a motorbike belonging
to him, your hair flying
against the sun, me standing
at the sink rinsing coffee cups,
imagining what would happen
if the pipes should burst someday.

Carl Boon lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. Recent or forthcoming poems appear in Posit, The Tulane Review, Blast Furnace, JuxtaProse, The Blue Bonnet Review, and many other magazines.