Rinse Cycle
by Autumn Schraufnagel
When I finally get around to cleaning the shower
I find several strands of your hair pasted to the yellowed,
acrylic corners of not quite down the drain. I imagine
this is what it means to shampoo a man out of your hair.
Only, I am bleach wiping the doorknobs, the light switches,
the perfume and jewelry you gave as gifts. And even though
the sheets have soaked and spun and cycled you out,
I begin to think of how your lack-of-emotional-intelligence
skin particles must still be stuck in the drum of it. Forget
Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. I need fingernail clipping-less
carpets and a super-rinse detergent cycle set to scorch. That,
and modern-day feng shui. Three times I flip the mattress
and drag it closer to the light. I decide, after emptying
each dresser drawer, I want the whole thing out of my life.
Enter David. Enter Goliath. Dry-eyed and dizzy
from the bleach, the dresser, body like, dead weight,
too heavy to lift.
Autumn Schraufnagel is an MFA Poetry student and Graduate Teaching Assistant at Oklahoma State University. She was awarded the Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize representing the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work has also appeared in Montage Arts Journal.