Busy Body

My mother set out chairs and tables
As I scrubbed shit off the bathroom floor, and off the wall,
and the lid of the garbage can beside the toilet.
I pushed a mop across the tiles
and used an old sponge to clean the sink and toilet seat
while sweat dripped from the tip of my nose,
from my temples, down my neck and down the center of my chest,
to form dark spots on my camisole,
hidden by a thin gray shirt layered over top.
There was no window in the room. I was dripping
with sweat,
inhaling waste and cleaning products,
working diligently in preparation for the arrival of the guests—
the high school students who were attending the summer arts academy,
fifty or so of them. I volunteered my house as a meeting place since the coffee shop where we typically take them
had closed.
I vacuumed the hallway to pick up bits of urine-soaked,
dried toilet paper that fall out of my grandmother’s underwear.
She shoves the paper there when she runs out of pads.
Or the paper comes from a pad that is so full
it begins to fall apart. The pieces fall out of the bottom of her pants
as she shuffles down the hall and back.
To her chair,
to the kitchen,
to the chair,
to the bathroom where she seldom showers,
to her bedroom cramped by misarranged furniture
and piles of clothes, papers, and packages
that haven’t been opened or returned.

I am skeptical of being able to grow old gracefully.
It terrifies me how my body is already so different
from how it was ten years ago.
My mother is still beautiful, still graceful
(even with one and a half fake knees, blonde-white hair and ivory skin),
but I haven’t many of my mother’s body genes.

Outside,
after the food has been set out, the chairs arranged, the atmosphere is nearly set
save the dead mouse, courtesy of my smallest cat,
rotting near the table by the stairs, where people must walk to reach the patio.
I choose a small stick from the wood pile and go to the mouse,
its gray fur stained on the sidewalk,
its little mouth open,
tail curved stiffly up like an apostrophe.
I use the stick to flick the mouse from the walk,
onto the dirt next to the table,
onto the dirt under the stairs
past the table where it is hidden
from people who won’t be looking.
A worm falls out of its body.
The flies scatter from it and find it again where it has been relocated.
The decomposers follow the sweet rotting scent to help the little rodent flesh break down until it is unrecognizable and then gone.

The guests arrive.
They find chairs and many go to sit on the fabric my friend has laid across the grass farther down in the yard.
I am busy, busy, busy
helping people get situated,
showing kids to the bathroom,
setting up the coffee pots, getting napkins for the girl with a nosebleed,
getting paper towels for the girl who stepped in dog shit,
getting Benadryl for the girl with allergies,
getting plastic spoons and knives and Tylenol for the boy with a headache,
turning on patio lights, running up to the bathroom, running to my room for books of poetry to read when there is a lull with the kids who haven’t filled up the sign-up sheet to read their own work.

Coming back downstairs, I notice my cat following me (the older one).
He’s been cooped up upstairs all day so I reach down to pick him up
and carry him outside and he cries as if…
he reaches out to swat me as if he’s hurt
and I set him down outside and I see blood
pooling around a wound near his hip.
I look down at my shirt and pants where a spray of blood and puss has made streaks, darkening my already dark denim pants.
I don’t have too much time for concern—
I run inside to change and wash my hands and arm where blood is smeared.
My cat hides on the other side of the house,
no doubt running his rough tongue over and over and over the wound
that looks like a hole where a fang has pierced his skin.
I haven’t the money for a vet.
I pray his special cat saliva will do the trick. I pray.

My mother tells me my grandmother, her mother, is sick again,
and so grandma has changed her mind again, and won’t be going with my mother and sister to Oklahoma.
But they’ll only be gone a couple of weeks, not a month.
Still.
This means I will not get a break.
I will not get a break.

Summer camp will end
and I will attend my friend’s wedding where I will be forced to confront the fact that I am single (is it my body? My body that doesn’t look but feels so different than it did ten years ago?)
and then there are other obligations
and there is grandma who barely ever does
anything besides sit in her plush recliner and watch Fox News.
And it’s back to work for minimum wage
while the collectors keep calling, keep asking, and I keep telling—
I have no money. I have none. Yes, I’m employed but not full-time,
not yet, but I’m busy, busy, busy like it is full-time
and then it’s back to teaching—
teaching for more money
but still while working minimum wage
for the benefits in case this body needs another organ removed or a cavity filled or a virus killed or a wound healed (my saliva isn’t special, unfortunately).

And then the year will be over, just like that.
And I’ll be working and paying and doing and
cleaning up shit and
trying
to help my mother
and looking forward to sleep in a bed that makes my back ache
so badly I never sleep for more than a few comfortable hours. (But it’s still difficult to get out of that bed).
Still.

I make time for friends.
I talk to my mother about how difficult it is—
all of it. (She admits to me that her own mother has her feeling suicidal.)

And I need to quit smoking.
Lately I’ve developed a cough.
Something gets caught
in my throat, in my lungs, and I cough,
choking for a smooth breath of air.
All I worry about is losing my singing voice.
Because other than that, anything else would mean a break.
A vacation.
An invitation to the decomposers
to find me and
return this tired body to the earth
where there are no obligations or loneliness or debt or anger or pain
just miles and miles of quiescent dirt and rock
and freedom.