Again, the dream: I need to leave,
yet each door I open opens
another room, another door.
The pen in open. Is this made
possible by someone whose traces
hover in the absence? The seen
in absence. I’m aching for you,
dear architect. The further back
through history we look, the more
faces fade—a room in a house
we cannot see, nor imagine ourselves
out of. December’s advancing dark.
The ember in December. I can’t
breathe in this room I guest,
you ghost. The inverted asthmatic
trees in my chest burn to bloom,
& must relearn each time to rise
from the ground, & to return.
The urn in return. & the rue.
–first appeared as a Broadside for Broadsided Press