It comes upon me to clean my bedroom, to put
away the clothes on the headboard, the lingerie on the dresser,
and last night’s shoes lying underneath my small table.

It is good, I say aloud, to clean
this disordered order and pick up the things I’ve left
like crumbs or footsteps or shadows behind me.

I pick up the clothes but find other clothes underneath and other clothes
beneath those clothes so I turn to the lingerie but it has multiplied too,
each filmy thing leading to another and another.

I do not look at the shoes lying under my small table and I
slowly back out of the bedroom and close the door behind me.