HOME

Home is the non-place
Energetic spiraling
Of warmth. Cocooning
With future imaginaries filling lazy hours
Conveniently forgetting to get up off the couch.

Walls disintegrate from my slow breath’s
Steady stream—inhaling the apartment’s musty objects,
Exhaling dreamlike sequences of memories.

Their vibrations crumble the ceiling
In a dissonant reach. Freshening white noise
Creates time, space—chronotopic virtual richness
Of abstractions. Being is prospective.

A humming enmeshed with mine churns
Fresh olive bread. An hour later, after left
To rise, bake, its salty, chestnut-sweet scent
Enters. Brings me back to baking with Mom
Or allowing her to soothe me as anxious midnight hours
Of preparation for what’s next
Threaten anxiety – fear – a freeze.

I hold my stomach, rubbing the spot
I hope will someday grow, like hers for me.

Silence, as the historicity in my daydream
Collapses gracefully. A neighbor’s high-heeled clickety clack above
The yippy next door dog’s rough greeting—Pah-lunk!
Male shoes cross the threshold
Eyes still closed, I feel his socks’ electricity on the wooden floorboards
Shifting closer—and he pounces gingerly
Like a young lion, flirting another cub in the wild.

He wraps the blanket around us both, his soft chilly paw
Finds the shadow left by my hands.