now, another home (1st draft)

i once stood in a field of whatever fruit, or

legume you can think of; i am back to this

place where i wrote all summer long about

quiet, and everywhere i found it's fingers

wrapped in to. i don't know where i am

without orange trees, or wondering without

hope. i could never wonder these thoughts

away in any other place except where my mind

is made up. the more my mind becomes set,

like tablecloth to bowl, like cloud to air

and planes, like fingers to the palm of that

other hand, it becomes unset even more. as

if there is only raveling with this unravelling.

the unravelling supersedes movement, voice,

the things that force you to change. it seems

this way: those who hurt you have inexplicable

power to break through your woven life. you

can drown them, push them under tidepools,

fight their strengths with so much weakness

you have grown into. you can cause them

pain, too. but it's like your mother used to say

when you came home with tears fighting the

dirt on your face and what had been done

was over; they changed some part of your

delicate weave. then i am left to wonder:

how do i use oxygen and twine and water

like i used to? how do i start fresh with my

lungs grown used to this breath? i used to

have a love with everything my weave could

hold; it bore his weight and my own. now

i am left to grow cotton where there was

once love. grow strength in order to be soft.

when loss comes towards your body,

like the slowest moving cloud of fog, it

masks you, hides your self while you

grow underneath it. you are only free

by using your fingers and pulling it

away. you are free only when your

pain has moved slowly into new waters.

on going away (draft)

you came back to my house once

and unpacked all of our belongings,

just for the day. my house used to

hold limestone, crimson, satin, the

more that comes out of more. so

many objects desired by ourselves.

packed into tiny packs of our home.

we shared it all without names. we

woke up late, we were surrounded,

we drank out of mugs that wrapped

into our hands easily, we were in the

middle of our house, we were between

winter and spring, we chewed, gnawed

at life. it is one of those homes you can

feel the space held by what it iself holds;

when the walls have unrolled off the

pillars, the sofas removed of their sitting

places and their sitters, i can feel you

in the air of the home we had. i feel the

place in all of this space.

sloughing rust that made us (draft)

That house we all knew and

fell into on our feet and hands,

always dragging our wrists in,

soaking wood, linoleum, rust

into our skin and becoming

one thing--one family. We

were the color of drawings

of noon, shinier and bruised,

harsh in shades so bright

against who we were becoming.

We all decided in unison, in the

quiet way of decisions spent

with much time, to use soft

cloths, soft anything to

null the rust that made us,

scrub off each other, sloughing

years of birthday cakes, time

spent staring at so many yellow

walls, words, so many words,

taken with our own hands

to describe a thing like home.

All of it, falling perpendicular to

the land, leaving stains

on it and us in the shape of

small animals, butterflies

inching across and up our skin,

and underneath, through,

they moved, skipping our new

eyes, staggering across the

slippery, sure plains of our

hearts, with urgency.

Dust is always for later; it

comes into our new spaces

from the stains we bring,

with a vengeance, reminding

us that what can tbe brought

back will leave itself and

will stay in us.