(a house or a home or neither)

the house was such an

open thing

doors like eyelids

peeled backwards from

empty sockets

and windows that exhale, inhale

hoping not to suffocate

on crepe-paper curtains

the children would breeze through the

rooms

like foreign bits of wind

new words, shrubs from the garden

the walls

absorbed

their fingerprints

the ceilings took up their laughter

every corner

a net for a memory

I wonder

that their beds

did not conspire to eat them,

keep them safe and only here

 

(your obvious potential)

eyelids and lips and a nose all downcast,

(you wear such a heavy crown)

a soft, eager redness

that glows at your ears

(a rosy luster when things are dark)

I want to know

how you sit there so calm

when your insides are rushing,

a bush of flowers

which cannot wait

to grow