Inventory

At sixteen I worked at a Build-a-Bear in the mall,
stuffing the soft skins

of teddy bears. During my shifts
I sat by a big machine as children lined up

like cars in a drive thru, or hungry mouths
at the counter of my grandparents’

luncheonette in Liberty, New York,
in between wars.

The children looked like children. I wore
a denim button-down and khaki pants. Before stitching

each animal shut, I’d pluck a tiny, satin heart
from a plastic bucket like

a pomegranate seed.
One child made a wish,

then another. It was not for me to ask
what the wish was, only to gesture

to where within the cavern the heart would go.
After closing, just as spring

shadowed the parking lot with the first signs,
I’d bring a pencil and notepad to the back of the store

and take inventory: shelves of toy animal skins stacked
on metal scaffolding—young men sleeping soundly

in the barracks—the stockroom
a cathedral in repair.

Beneath muffled light, I count the hairs
sticking to bottles, the second

used condom, seeds in a pomegranate.
Within his glassy dome, snow is falling

as Hades takes Persephone
deeper inside the replica of girlhood.



Reprinted from One More World Like This World (Four Way Books, 2025). Used with the permission of the publisher.