Another poem for y’all. This one is from the start of this year when I was homeless for a few months and couchsurfed at different friends’ houses. There are a few of these where I’m not quite sure into what project they fit. For now I’ll share them with you here.
In a Home Not Yours
If you consider the floorboards
you tread on in a stranger’s home
as yours for just a second
and feel the push of them
on the pads of your feet
the splinters dig themselves
into your callouses like
the pinprick of a unforgotten
memory digs itself out of your
mindgrave.
Unearthed layers of skin
thick ridged scar tissue
with furrowed landscapes
in the lines.
Look at your hands.
They say they can tell the future
but they can only tell the past.
Maybe the present.
No wonder clocks have them
to hold the hours here and gone
all together in neat bundles of
60, 24, 7, 31
Stacked along the winking
memory banks
that cluster like
Desert roses
intersecting at angles
you never knew
could slice so deep.