Every memory palace should have a damp basement
with frozen pipes and mouse bones,
shreds of pink insulation, you dare not enter.
Every memory palace should have
my childhood basement, at the dead end of Elm St.,
with its soft beams and dirt floor
where we stored a mannequin named Greta
who scared us to death every time we went to reset the hot-water tank.
Greta, purchased from the Lazarus department-store
closing sale, 1996. The same store where my feet
were measured by those amazing people
who used to kneel in front of you
to press a big toe against the leather and tell you to
walk around a little, see how it feels.
Everything khaki and ketchup red; frosted glass, pastel floral.
Santa Claus lived there, at the top of the staircase,
and I sat on him, suddenly aware of how grubby
my winter coat was, and my fingernails; how crooked
my gaze. Greta watched—flawless, in her prime
in the newest sweater and pantyhose and pencil skirt,
not knowing she would be purchased by_us_
for $40. Not knowing she would end up
in the muddy basement of a farmhouse,
naked, dismembered, her breasts bared for no one
but the spiders, the red efts, the plumbers,
her arm lying beside her, her hand
with three missing fingers that were
kicking around somewhere upstairs—
I have no memory palace.
I have tomato-paste cans bloated
on a sagging plywood shelf.
Memory: the botulism exhibit. Lockjaw.
A declawed cat. Come, and you’ll trip over a cement statue
of a cement bag that got wet before it was even opened,
all its creases preserved perfectly—
when I look back
there’s an axe in my head, and tarp draped over it.
There’s a white mask hanging on the wall
and no eyes, just holes with more wall looking out,
so angry it’s frozen in a red smile, guarding
what can neither see nor hear.
This is drawn from “The Near and Distant World.”
