Small Poems for Leaving Slowly

How it begins

At six each morning I clean the noticeboard around a square of tape that nobody can lift.

The paper it once held has been gone for years.

I used to call that dirt. Now I work around it.

On Monday I leave a note:

Some things stay because removing them would take the wall.

By Tuesday someone has answered in blue ink.

Some walls stay because we have forgotten there is a door.

I read it twice before I empty the bins.

Upstairs, Mrs. Carter counts eight slow steps between her chair and the kitchen.

She used to teach people how to turn without losing where they were.

Now she tells visitors the room is too small for dancing.

I have seen the room. I think she means the life around it.

On Wednesday the demolition notice covers our two poems.

The date is printed in letters large enough to read from the stairs.

There is no space for a reply.

I move it sideways.

This is not a brave political act.

It is six twelve. My bus leaves at six twenty. I have three floors left to clean.

Beside the notice I write:

Please leave room for the people who live here.

At lunchtime Mrs. Carter comes down with a blue pen and two paper cups.

She stands where the old tape has marked the board.

"Rosa," she says, reading my name from the cleaning schedule, "do you dance?"

"Badly."

"Good. Then there is something to teach."

We sit on the stairs.

Above us, someone begins moving furniture.

Below us, a letter falls through the door.

For several minutes neither of us picks it up.

The tea is too hot. The stair is hard. The building, which has never cared whether I was tired, holds us anyway.

When I return the next morning, there are three new poems.

One is written on the back of a packing label.

It begins:

I am trying to leave slowly enough to notice what I carry.