Tearing Down I and II (poems)

Tearing Down I

I was up by five a.m.,
at the store by eight, opting to walk
through Somerville and Cambridge
to arrive in Back Bay energized
and ready to destroy. We were
a twelve-fisted wrecking crew,
us Hallmarkian Divas dressed
in our most casual slaughterwear.
With boxes and hammers and our very own
dusty voices, we sang and laughed
and violated the remains of our gutted
store: once the place we came
to work, now a carcass, picked
at, sucked clean, with a trail
of glitter leading to the high-
noon sun, leaving us, sunk
into the bowel of what was once
a body of glory, impenetrable



Tearing Down II

Everyone cried except for me.
I stood, dry-eyed, dry-souled,
and waited for them to dab
each other’s faces while I leaned
against the door. I wanted to laugh.
I wanted to sing. I wanted this day
to be fun, and it was. Bare-
armed, I threw shelves and glass
and yellow backdrops into the dumpster
dubbed us “The Girls of Refuse”
and littered the air with stories
about my old job. I don’t know
why I didn’t care as much
as the others about the dismantling
of a twenty-three-year-old homestead,
but I do know that I’m going to add
doesn’t do construction to my resume