I am moving.

My stepmother’s exercise
weights do not fit.
I leave them unpacked.
(I’ll find room for them
somewhere, somehow.)

Suddenly I am standing —
the corner, you and your friends
13 and cliquey.
I am happy to see you
this is just like class
except we’re on the streets
and you’re excited to see me.
You write hurriedly on chart paper
I pull from my carpet bag, smiling.

My mother’s car pulls up
and the son of the upstairs neighbor
(who had a crush on her)
and I used to baby sit
gets out of the car
and he’s 13 now too
and telling me to hurry up
“Put your things
in the trunk,” quickly filling in
“We need to take the pictures,
just like last year,”
but his voice is this distant sound
dust shifting really loud,
and I keep asking what he means
when he starts yelling at me
“How could you forget?”
I’m still dumbstruck looking around
when his father steps out and starts yelling
and then my mother too
who I try to tell
that the weights really have to go in the car.
“But there’s no time,” she tells me, “There’s no time
we have to go take these family
photos,” I wrack my mind and still
I don’t remember,
this didn’t happen, this isn’t how it goes,
I’m starting to know
this doesn’t make sense

when a feral cat climbs out of the car.
I manage,
“Really, with us? We have to take this?”

But just as it’s about to attack
one of you
I grab it
mid air,
time seems to slow.
My old apartment fades
from the periphery I see
someone pick their son up
from the corner
“You coming back next year?”
he shouts.
“I’m kinda busy”
I think (feral cat still on hand)
but say “Of course,”
and he shakes his head
that way adults do
when they think “Oh you still
you can make sense of all this.”
And I want to scream,
“What am I supposed to do?”

Tall men on the corner overshadow you,
it’s getting dark
my hands are full
“I’m sorry,” I say
waking up.