Footprint, and Bones

Abstract

Footprint, and Bones Anders Carlson-Wee (bio) Footprint Throw away eggs and I makebreakfast, plastic and I weave rugs, duct tape and I reinforcea chair leg, milk cartons and I plant seeds, starta nursery. Your torn jacket gets hemmed. Busted shadesget jimmyrigged. Throw away Tidy Cat buckets and I addhardware, convert them to rain- proof panniers. Your mailand I read it. Your pencils and I write. Throw awayhundreds of pounds of tea and I draw baths thickenedwith hundreds of bags of chamomile. Bent nailsstraighten. Warped wood warps back. Throw away framesand I frame whatever else you threw away, mount iton my wall like a trophy. [End Page 161] Bones for North Kneeling in a mix of good and badfood, I sort by smell, never noticingthe garbage truck's approach, not hearing, over the trainyard'slonely horn, the scrape of forkssliding into the dumpster's black sleeves, until the machineis lifting me like an offeringinto the thick midsummer air. Seconds later, after getting chewedout by the driver, threatenedwith arrest, and left behind with the now hollow dumpster,I can't help but wonder whatwould have happened to me if I'd been taken away with the trash.No doubt added to other massesof trash, swept west by train car and dumped on a bulk bargebound for some poor other placewhere they stuff the world's Mecca of waste, only to have some kidnot so different from me findand dream up a use for my bones. [End Page 162] Anders Carlson-Wee Anders Carlson-Wee is the author of The Low Passions (W. W. Norton, 2019). His work has appeared in Paris Review, BuzzFeed, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writers, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, he is the winner of the 2017 Poetry International Prize. He holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University and is represented by Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents. Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications