Home

I spent a day in shorts and bare feet, but

the clouds returned on a Monday, brought

by winds that scattered confetti over the street.

Winds so sharp the children got sick and stayed

home - 

 

I tried to build one, but my car is packed

with my belongings now. My legs are hairy,

and my nails are cracked from manual labour.

 

In a wicker seat, I passed an empty hour thinking

about the winter wheat and how I still run

from myself, to find this girl sitting beneath

the rafters in Claudia’s attic.

 

She was all knees. All scabs and warts on the palm

of a hand. With eyes like spring, she let a fire

beetle trace a life over her arm. ‘I want a child,’ she

whispered, ‘a girl.’

 

Fed on salmon and sambuca, drinking honey

wine from gemstone glasses, she watched her life

fall into place like a half-remembered dream

on the back of a bus in Bern.

 

The world is her neighbour now, in this bitter

sweet May, and she wanders on unsteady stilts

to the bed he never slept in. Two hearts beat

in one breastbone, and a thousand lives

have been lived in search of

home.