"Household Goods Gone Bad" by Thomas Mixon
Your dad bought us a trash can and stuck a pink bow on top.
We were opening up presents while our families watched,
a couple months before our wedding. My god, how young
we looked. I loved your poise and the cut of your dress
as you filled the can with gifts. Early in our marriage
something happened with the pedal. It got disconnected
from the lever. Meanwhile the government was threatening
to default on its debt, so we threw the can into the trunk
and drove back to the store your dad had bought it from.
They had locations everywhere. I loved to laze the aisles
with you, touch your butt behind a corner, wonder
if I’d ever write a poem about how wild your large eyes
made me feel, how I hated how you tied the garbage bags
and couldn’t stop myself from fixing them in front of you,
or buy a different kind. During Covid we began to sleep
in different beds. It took a while, but tonight I made it
four and a half hours next to you before I had to leave.
I loved you in late mornings, before we became parents,
and I love you now, as dawn considers the best way
to sneak up on whoever’s been awake, remembering
the old trash can your father bought us. To our surprise,
an employee at the store hoisted a ladder, scaled the wall
of bins and pans, and brought a new one down for us.
The government averted shutting itself down, so we drove
back to the house we’d soon move out of, happy, young,
holding a pack of liners. I can’t help loving you harder
the more we age. I just want to tear away everything
that is irrelevant, and love you like a broken lever
scraping against plastic. We still have that second bin.
When we moved I didn’t want to clean it and told you
I planned to throw it out. You didn’t let me. I love you
when you will not let me do what I’ve convinced myself
has to be done. Our marriage is a gift I’m fond of juxtaposing
with the sink, the fridge, billow of smoke from meals I’ve left
atop the stove, any household good gone bad that we get through,
the pillow I bring to the couch, and then, back next to you.
Thomas Mixon has poems in miniskirt magazine, Rattle, Radon Journal, and elsewhere. He's a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.
