Useful Life

By Maggie Wang

Self-Portrait with Waste and Excess

I pray for the tomatoes that do not move me to be eaten.
The loaf of bread dried to bitter-sky blue, under whose cover
hyphae have long been dancing, falling for each other, 

building a country in ignorance of me. The bag of chestnuts
slipping on their shrouds, lining up to throw away
their sweetness. The potatoes sinking angry roots

through the floorboards, stomachs staring down
the long barrel of darkness, while in the fridge,
the mushrooms grow sunspots and the milk softens its carton

with tears. The walnuts in the back—being weighed
still in their wrapping. I have no way to hope that in their damp
coolness a memory might grow of me. And the eggs:

when they float, I wonder at the blessing of chickens,
which is also the blessing of the battery cage, the grain-fed
grass, and the rain pattering against the roof of a barn

so long and wide it looks like an open field. 

Useful Life

The useful life of a tractor is three years, or so say
the lobbyists for the tractor manufacturers, who are in 

the pockets of the oil refiners assuaging their guilt
for the killing of the birds. In Federal Income Taxation, 

we learn that the useful life of a tree is ten years. Does that mean
the redwoods holding up the Sierra Nevada no longer

breathe or that the tree my parents unwrapped in the bed
of their first front yard is no longer a tree?

Under the Internal Revenue Code, the useful life of real
property is undefined—infinite, asymptotic, unlimited. Sky 

empty of night, sea devoid of boundaries. Do we really agree
that the clear-cut forest after rain is the same

as the understory thick with skin and leaves?

Your Return

text from the Internal Revenue Service’s Instructions for Form 1040 and Form 1040-SR (Tax Year 2023)

Your return is complicated.
Your return will determine nothing and everything.
Your return must reconcile last time with this time.

If certain conditions apply, you can return at the end of the year.|
On your return, you must qualify for the continued opportunity of living.
You qualify if, on the date of your return, you meet one of the following conditions:

            You changed your name because of marriage or divorce.
            Your name is your name.
            You chose your name.
            Your name chose your return.
            Your return is timely.

Do not return unless asked to do so.
Before making your return, please consider the effect on others.
Cutting short your return may cause problems in processing.
If you choose not to return this year, we may disallow your return in the future. 

You may not claim a loss when you have none.
You are responsible for the correctness of your return.
You want an acknowledgment that your return was received and accepted.
You must answer any questions that arise during your return.

If you miss the original date of your return, you will owe interest and may owe penalties.
To avoid interest and penalties, make your return on time.
You may owe a fee for your return, but you should not pay this fee.
Instead, keep your return secret. Keep it between us.

Do not read too much into your return.
For most people, your return means nothing.
The world does not wait for your return. Only we do.

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Maggie Wang's recent work appears in berlin lit, Brooklyn Review, and Wet Grain. Her debut pamphlet, The Sun on the Tip of a Snail's Shell, was published by Hazel Press in September 2022.

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