Mira Rosenthal

Everyone and their mother wants to extend us credit, though we have no collateral, save deposits made of late into the tremendous sorrow bank where the walls seem to duplicate rows, columns, keyholes begging for felonious picking, so I can’t toss the glossy offers straight into the garbage, lest someone thus and thus root through to procure the place, the date, the so-and-so that give away what we call identity—no, I have to strip the very essence of each form, displace the digits, tear to shreds any semblance of a name before I ball it all up and deposit it with the swarming ants. Only then can we rest in our plywood bed.