You want to go back, you
Want to go back, you want
To go back, why don’t you
Come back, what good are you
Here.
You’re wasting.

My mother had a Boise
Love affair,
The openness
Built to last. She owned the sediment specks
Tacked to soles, Steel
-belted radials. Teeth.

Arid weather crept inward
Across linoleum,
Densely woven carpet
Fibers, under doorways,
Over pads of her feet.
Drying each tiny hair within her nostrils.

Her second hand twin mattress
Clotted with too many blankets flanked
By stale nail holed sheet rock.
Paint bowed from damp wind
Trotting in from Spirit Lake
Once summer faded from the horizon.

Eventually she forced
All her wishes into dense brine,
Siphoning out sweetness
Preserving shadows to
Stave off dehydration
Until the wet season returned.

Come back, what good are you
Here. You want
To go back. Why don’t
You come back.