Apartment Slowly Furnished With Spoils of Neighbors’ Trash

Earlier this month, my next-door neighbors left a large wooden dresser on the side of the road, directly in line with their front door. The dresser was chipped, too big for my apartment, missing a couple knobs—and free. I hauled it inside. Free shit is free shit.

Several weeks passed.

Yesterday, I left the house to find a filing cabinet positioned where the dresser had been. I approached the cabinet eagerly. I shook it. I lifted it. I opened and closed each drawer. Ultimately, I decided to leave the filing cabinet—I have few files—but I did manage to recover some leftover magnet poetry from the inside of a drawer. (Until now, a single American flag magnet has precariously supported my refrigerator’s small collection of postcards and CVS receipts).

So far, I’ve managed to craft two phrases from it:

hence always ebb like banal space
hence always space like banal ebb

Free shit is free shit. But now that I have about a 50-50 chance of determining the magnet poetry phrase with which my next-door neighbors chose to adorn their tax returns, have I gone too far?

There’s no turning back now. Bring it on, next-door neighors: I’m in the market for a new wastebasket. I’d also like an ottoman.