Someday, this exile will end
I told myself, as I go on
Mounting what is still undone
All this is but an illusion
A nightmare at its end!

Spread the bed by the corner
And the shelf by the closet...
Set the lamp on the glass
And the table by the door...

Yet winter never ceased
And I, basked under crooked shadows,
Stole what I could from the wavering flames
To keep my hands warm
But my feet were cold
Where the velvet wood prickled,
Refusing to summon the weaved tuft
That once outstretched beneath
And so I go on drowning
In the endless mounting...

Pin the painting by the window
And the frame on the wall
...Or was it the other way around?

Saline lingered on my tongue

I returned to a shriveled wreck upon parched lawn;
Where the uprooted flower bed lay,
The bathroom sink dug deep, torn in two;
The maple leaves, murky with grief;
Yet, the metal gates shut in silent scorn

This was my home



There once stood a small house
Squeezed between looming giants
Beige-taupe carpet against lavish brown;
Ashen shale next to dazzling gold...

The days under the skylight
Where the easel lay
And nights under blue-black sheets
With a book in hand, sometimes a pen...

The fights and the flights
When siblings were still young enough to run outside;
The path to the bath well remembered in the dark
On nights when raccoons came by....

*

This is my home
Forever fixed upon this spot—
Withered not by the moon nor the sun
A paradise that exists nowhere else
But in memory