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Break down the boxes that held the clothing and stuff them into the dumpster in the alley behind the shop. Break down the racks that held the sexy dresses, the leather coats, the French lingerie until they are just rods and wheels lying in a corner.  Fold up the clothing neatly. Break down the counter, the shelves, and the cash register empty of cash. Break down the shadows that no longer hold voices. Break down the light that drops through the window like a message until it is just a scrap of light. Break down the dust that clings to the walls and counters that your mother attacks with a cloth and Windex. Break down the mannikins until they are disconnected limbs, head, and torso. Now there is only the memory of a memory, the striped cat leaping on the counter, its tail ticking back and forth, the nurses in white uniforms peeking in the windows of air to spot a skirt or blouse on sale, your mother’s voice coming back to you like the smells of a fresh cinnamon sweet roll and steaming black coffee, and the blaze of sun that makes it impossible to see.

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Appeared initially in Fort Nightly Review and then in Broken Signals (Bamboo Dart Press, 2024). Later it was selected for Best Microfiction 2023.

Bio:

JEFF FRIEDMAN’s eleventh book, Broken Signals was recently published by Bamboo Dart Press in 2024. Friedman’s poems and microfictions have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Fiction International, Dreaming Awake: New Contemporary Prose Poetry from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, Smokelong Quarterly, Flash Fiction Funny, Wigleaf, 100-word Story, Plume, Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Anthology, Cast-Iron Aeroplanes That Can Actually Fly: Commentaries from 80 American Poets on their Prose Poetry, New England Review, Hotel Amerika, Rattle, Antioch Review, Best Microfiction 2021 2022, 2023,2024,and 2025, and The New Republic. He has received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship and numerous other awards.