Too Much

One week she did not place the empties
in the tin box, but still received the new bottles,
she told me. The milkman never said anything.

She was under thirty, trying to meet expectations,
with two small children. It was too much.
The next week she did not place the empties

because she was embarrassed about
the double amount, her failure to exchange.
She told me the milkman never said anything.

I think she hid from the windowed back door.
Did he care why we needed the bottles
each week she did not place the empties,

each month her incapacity bloomed and shamed
her? Was this when she was afraid of wide open spaces,
she told me? My dad definitely said something

when he looked under the kitchen sink and saw
nothing but glass. Irritable, confused. What’s the deal?
One week Mom began to not feel her own emptiness,
she told me, and the milkman never returned.

*

Amy Holman is a poet, literary consultant, and artist. She is the author of six small press poetry books, most recently Captive (Saddle Road Press, 2023). She lives in Brooklyn, New York.