The children of this town speak of vacation and travel.
Worrying about the summer before it's even Spring.
I tell them, "why, why, why are you
LEAVING here before you've fulfilled your night-
time fantasy?"
They board a train or ship uncoothed and begging for more time.
I tell them "the ones you want are here already, in your being. They are
present and ready to be called out of the closets and crawlspaces of your dwellings,
looking for the belongings
you forwarded them in the shape of skin and grain and blood."
I tell them "Alone you leave this city and your self returns with you,
empty, even emptier than at birth. This city is your womb,
you can't escape the placental waters of your home,
the umbilical rail, the breathing air."
But when it is summer, they go. To be gone, to starve
the children in the closets clawing at
the fastened latch and watching time escape their follicles.
While they are sitting in darkness, we tell them we left to get away, to catch a sky
that crashes into distant lands or hold up
stars with out bare hands.
We say "bless this city and the state of our birth."
We stand, alive, unconquered and surprised that closet children are dead when we get back
it's just us in this city
With all stars surrounding
Unseen with the same lights
We saw out there which blot them out
The sky has fallen and our hands are cleaned
By the starving blood of closet children
Whom we refused to feed
Dried up under the moon.
Jun 1, 2012
Jun 1, 2012 at 8:47 PM UTC
The children of this town speak of vacation and travel.
Worrying about the summer before it's even Spring.
I tell them, "why, why, why are you
LEAVING here before you've fulfilled your night-
time fantasy?"
They board a train or ship uncoothed and begging for more time.
I tell them "the ones you want are here already, in your being. They are
present and ready to be called out of the closets and crawlspaces of your dwellings,
looking for the belongings
you forwarded them in the shape of skin and grain and blood."
I tell them "Alone you leave this city and your self returns with you,
empty, even emptier than at birth. This city is your womb,
you can't escape the placental waters of your home,
the umbilical rail, the breathing air."
But when it is summer, they go. To be gone, to starve
the children in the closets clawing at
the fastened latch and watching time escape their follicles.
While they are sitting in darkness, we tell them we left to get away, to catch a sky
that crashes into distant lands or hold up
stars with out bare hands.
We say "bless this city and the state of our birth."
We stand, alive, unconquered and surprised that closet children are dead when we get back
it's just us in this city
With all stars surrounding
Unseen with the same lights
We saw out there which blot them out
The sky has fallen and our hands are cleaned
By the starving blood of closet children
Whom we refused to feed
Dried up under the moon.
MMXII
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