mop water

i want to hear your again stories
until the moon, like a loose tooth,
drops to the ground. i make wishes
on eyelashes. serve dinner to my ghosts.
at the malt shoppe, i was the worst
mopper we had. i rushed. i wanted
so badly to go home. i had school 
the next day. i had no more fingers.
just a neon girlhood in a rear view mirror.
sometimes my boyfriend would 
eat fireworks from my hands. the mop 
smelled sweet. like green legs & summer.
my shoes were sticky from syrup 
& cream. lines out the door. my knees 
popped like bottle caps. everyone was
1950s in a good way & a bad way. 
chili dog & peach cobble topping. 
scrubbing the floor of the day. foot prints.
the streetlamps knocked on the glass.
i preferred to close by myself. 
even if the basement was musty 
& full of fingers. even if the college boys
who lived above liked to catcall me.
i enjoyed it because it made me feel like
i was doing girlhood right. the mop water
soaking through to my socks.
stars, like stoplights. stoplights like fires.
i wanted to go home. i scrubbed. washed.
the water gray & mashed. we poured it out
in the back lot. the dumpster 
held a man without any eyes. 
he waved to me. i waved back.
i know i am wrong to crave a mythical simplicity 
of flesh back then. what i really want is for 
my bones to mean less than they do now. 
to go back to when i touched sugar. 
cleaned the floor of two rooms. turned off
all the lights for the night & stuffed
tips into my back pocket 
without counting them.