Fifty strangers are trying to reach me. They all want to know
about seven boxes of laminate that someone–not me–
is giving away on Craigslist. The flooring is somewhere
in Sacramento. They leave me their contact info.
The inquiries range from casual–“Heyyyy my name’s
Jose do you still have the boxes”–to formal: “Good evening,
I am interested in the flooring…” Some of them take
a pleading tone–“if you still have the flooring, I’ll come
and get it right now ???” One person says, “I need flooring
desperately!” A lady named Dee writes a warm message
signed, “Thank you very much.” Linda writes twice. Ed seems
pretty chill: “I can take those off your hands.” They are in
Fair Oaks, Folsom, Citrus Heights. They are ready
to come and get all seven boxes of laminate flooring
tomorrow morning, tonight, right now. They’ve been ready
since yesterday, and they don’t know why they haven’t yet
heard back from me. They are friendly, cordial, they have learned
my name from my voicemail greeting, so they say, “Hi Chloe!
Hi Carly! Hello Cleo! Hey Cole.” I can hear Cassandra’s
kids in the background. Everyone so full of hope.
Everyone thanking me in advance. On Craigslist Sacramento,
I find my listing. I ask the person who really is
offering all that flooring for free to please,
please correct the phone number, so that at least one
of these fifty-two people (so far), of whom I’ve become
quite fond, even protective, might be able to have
what they wish for: gleaming new floors. May we all
catch a little free beauty sometimes. May at least one
of our earnest, desperate, hopeful calls be rewarded
with bounty. With fights unearned and earned. With free
laminate flooring, enough to make one room, at least, like new.
2018
Regular
Contemporary
2023
Poems of the Everyday
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Enjambment
a line break interrupting the middle of a phrase which continues on to the next line