Sweeping with a Hard Thai Broom

In orange kitchen she sits at the table, picking dirty ennui out from under her fingernails, the gray bits fall like ash into tomorrow,

When behind bathroom door, she’s pricking, plucking anxiety from her brow, pinching-
Pinching like a poorly drawn mouth
Pinching like an empty stomach
Pinching one hair                  Then, the next   
                                 adrift
unanchored squab landing lost on mosaic tile.

She longs to unzip her Jen suit, pull some bronze tab from her fabulous hair at her crown
Zigzag down zipper teeth chatterzzzzz frown
Open split along
her face belly knees
Until
She steps right on out of her skin hoodie and leaves her discarded self lying on her bedroom floor with the old socks and last year’s library book.
An outgrown snakeskin of who they think she is,
who she thinks they think she is,
who she thinks she is

It is time to
Invite the bell and,
breathing in,               she calms herself
breathing out,             she smiles at her eyes

That see her real self gliding over wooden floor, through the red front door, into her Spring.