IKEA
COHORT 8
After Franny Choi’s “Across the Rock”
the sign reads. Enter here. One-way
traffic. This an attempt to consume
the consumer. See the blue-and-yellow
bags each mock room. Wants become
needs become I touch
the mattress that I touch is called Haugesund
with linens the Swedish names Dvala
duvet, made white all white
the table: the minimalist Lack. The baskets
bright pillows the books in the case
Ribba frames the clothes in the hanging space
neat the order no longer on my face
aimless mammal nosing for a sip of clean
the drapes I hear the faucet’s muzzle
in the kitchen the drip of the water
glass, the table set runner the kettle’s
whine A cabinet slams or does it
laugh bowls behind, pan beside. I could
dine beneath these Sinnerlig lights
become the potted ferns below the ladles
the lemons the buns baking the baking
supplies, staged. I could spend
the night the bills in my pocket’s fade
crisp- bread the rye in the jar
lingonberry
jam on the left of these plates
I become the Pannkakor crepes fennel
on salmon fillets the potatoes Nordic
apple cake
to consume. I wake in 2013
IKEA sold meatballs made of horse instead
of beef. Scandalous mislabel. How soon
the Ingabritta blankets unwoven misshapen
on my flanks the makeshift walls the hidden
doors floor arrows they mock our stall
we are foals fool. I chew on receipts
until I lose the art of gazing grazing
on the grass of my two-story ash
in want
in need. Buyers’ remorse horse
instead of beef
what was once a home collapsing
the consumer my father’s cart collapsing
the wait
in line. Abstract paintings. I wait to become
domestic to be framed for the masses
catalog homes temporary modernity
hooves versus feet Picasso’s dove
the flight of the cubic desk lettuce
in my teeth. Disposable defeat:
this scene, this art
everything, it is in order
except the rip in the riff of the Rens
sheepskin rug house this body this frame
the Stockholm rug unrolled to please. Buyers’
buying. Horse instead of beef. I become
the art
of scheme. I become