Dust

when my parents moved to Florida 

my mother gave her most prized rugs to my uncle and asked him to hold them near until her children wanted them

my uncle kept the rugs for years and years as we went on with our lives and apartment living 

and homes too small for the weight of these rugs

the rugs rested on cold floors in the country 

waiting for us

five years passed, maybe more before we finally came for the rugs

memories rolled up into a uhaul and delivered to the suburbs

we laid the rugs out and our bodies were coated in dust

i have eaten the dust of my past

been blinded and choked by the dust of my upbringing

in this new life of ours, there can’t be dust

we took the rugs outside in a hailstorm 

and beat the rugs with brooms until the brooms broke and the wood splintered and the stubborn dust coated the ground 

and the hail turned our dust to icy chunks of mud 

we left the dust of our childhood in the backyard to melt until it was slowly washed away by rain

this is our new dust-free life

maybe

Party Line

Saw you on the party line,
as I'm towing the party line,
watching a religion like Europe 
its borders as lay lines,
the central authority of 8am
light bursting through your blinds;
room service knows as sure 
as the purple cloud 
spewing out beneath your door,
that this is not as uncanny
as the circumstance 
under which you should
have abstained.
Faces riven,

on which sheep-dotted rocks
of the highlands of Greece,

encrust around
eyes hollow, pupils blown out,
like my cat, at night in need - 
a cat in love,
sallow is the skin as weak as the will
as strong as what was

cut with your drugs.

So be it, see to it

And the hand reaches out 

Without looking

Knowing yours will be there to meet it

And you come home to a house

With the light on

And the meals are jotted on a post it note

Tacked on the well-stocked fridge 

And the tightness in your throat

Of knowing you are held

That child self can’t dare to trust

It will last

Casts an eye 

Looking for holes in the fabric

But you are shaking off 

The never-enoughness 

Casting wider protection spells

A mantra said, to soothe the nerves

And loosen the grip

And make it so

There’s enough for all of us

There’s always was 

There always will be