Anders Carlson-Wee

You don’t start at zero. You start way below zero.

I don’t lie, but I try to make myself sound worse off than I am.

After curbing what hasn’t sold

I sit across the street and spy on people

taking what this morning was mine.

Be careful—I’m filled with glass.

Before North took a seasonal job / fishing for kings in Alaska / I’d never admitted to myself / that he was my only friend.

Sorting through the chest’s junk, I happened
on this picture of him, a stranger I lived with 
month-to-month while I looked for something

No car to drive to the dump and too embarrassed 
to borrow one, you scrape the black mold 
off the underside as best you can, muscle it 
onto your shoulder. Spores multiplied to the size 

After pulling a score from the dumpster 
behind Krogers I stroll through 
sliding doors with egg-caked hands. 
The greeter greets me as I pass. I scan 
the aisles like a surgeon studying the mint