In the 70’s, I Confused Macramй and Macabre by Kelli Russell Agodon

I. 
I wanted the macabre plant holder 
hanging in Janet and Chrissy’s apartment. 
My friend said her cousin tried to kill himself 
by putting his head through the patterns 
of in his mother’s spiderplant hanger, but 
the hook broke from the ceiling and he fell 
knocking over their lava lamp, their 8-track player. 
His brother almost died a week later when 
he became tangled in the milfoil at Echo Lake. 
I said it could have been a very 
macramй summer for that family. 

II. 
When I looked outside for sticks to make a God’s Eye 
to hang my bedroom wall, I found a mouse 
flattened, its white spine stretching past its tail. 
And a few feet away from that, 
a dead bird with an open chest. 
Its veins wrapped tightly together. 
This neighborhood with its macramй details 
crushed into the street. I wanted 
my mother to console me, remind me 
that sometimes we escape. 
But when I returned to my house 
it was empty, except for the macabre owl 
my mother had almost finished, its body left 
on the kitchen table, while she ran out to buy more beads.