I. The relic of the nut butter machine, submerged in water,

artifact in the metal sink. Like the Antikythera mechanism

(the oldest computer, maybe,

encrusted with barnacles,

entrusted to archaeologists and the like —

confused students trying to understand it

between the hours of midnight and morning).

I’m a deep-sea diver (my hands are, at least)

reaching through hot sanitizer,

clumps of almond butter,

single-use food-safe blue-glove,

and the occasional strawberry knife,

sunken to the sea floor.

 

[I walk in and you ask me a question I don’t know the answer to. I turn

around from blasting unclean container with hot water jet. Sometimes, I’m

good at being whatever this is].

 

II. Single goji berry engraved into the ground by countless shoes that tread

on it each day, avoiding the barrage of mops. Yet no one breaks out the

so-called goji scraper. How long has it been there? It is level with the floor.

​

[Do you need water? Can I get you a bag? Let me know if there’s anything

else I can do for you. It’s wilderness out there. I’ll hold your hand through

it. I can see the cars, but let’s pretend it’s wilderness. There’s the hold music

of you on the phone to your insurance company. There’s a forest I saw

once on television, and a man as well. He’s wearing a beanie].

​

III. Pair of light blue Crocs on your feet — customizable little things inside

the breathing holes (widgets? Jibbitz? No one knows). Little mushroom,

little frog. I think we would be friends, if I knew what to talk about. You

could be more than a post to tether myself to. Tsunami warning rising,

wound around with safety rope.

​

[Seven months later, I won't tell you that I’m leaving until the day I leave.

I’ll come home and bury myself in couch. I’m sorry. Unclasp my wrist

brace, think about the forgotten tip money in the back].

 

IV. The rush comes in, and we form the limbs of a great aquatic creature

— ancient octopus, or squid (whichever has better coordination). One arm

scoops, another cuts bananas. One mans the cash register. The rush ends,

and we are individuals again.

​

[The question of where the crumbs go. They get swept away occasionally,

when I am not here. What else happens when I’m not around?]

 

V. Me. Pretending I am unearthed from a hundred and fifty years ago as a

way to cope. Excavated and unfrozen. That’s why I don’t understand what’s

going on — I was alive back then and something happened and now I am here

— no, I’ve never watched the Gilmore Girls. Yes, social customs are

different now. I shook my first hand yesterday. I think we touched lifelines.

Kind of sweaty.