home is where the heart is
but what if you don't have a home?
what if circumstances out of your control
have forced you to pack up
your belongings in knapsacks
book-bags
and suitcases
where could you kept your heart?
would you nestle it in-between socks that double
as bubble wrap
or in an old mason jar
cleaned of its old bacon grease and
sealed shut from air
i knew a girl once
who was without a home and instead of packing it away
she carried it on her sleeve
and under bridges and squeezed between cloth and a park benches
it got too ***** for her to recognize
and people would nudge up against it in soup lines
and in the winter time it would smell like outdoors and  freezing pines
i would ask her
why not keep in in your backpack
surely it would be much safer there
and she told me
she would never
separate her heart from her body like that
and if she did find a home
she wouldn't keep her heart there either
because houses are temporary and her body would be as permanent
as God would allow it to be