The sink fills with its tenants:
each side is a little apartment.

The fork tumbles first, its tines
a lost instrument. I carry its tune.

I could be rubber, I could be stone.

I resume my jealousy of solid objects,
fill all spaces: machine life, street life, sky life.

This is a world of floating continents—
last night's meal, the good china, body of glass.

An odd stick-woman shoos me away with a sponge.

Little green floatation device.

I feel a plate, I feel a drain.

____

"Water Jealousy" began from an idea I had standing at the sink washing dishes one night. I looked at the floating objects and wondered what the water might think about the invasion of its universe and further, how it might feel disconnected somehow. I am working on a book of poems, Soap & Other Maladies, in which I examine the human undercurrent of inanimate objects, among other things. I recommend reading Nick Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Matthea Harvey's Sad Little Breathing Machine, and Victoria Lancelotta's Here in the World.