Down from the fretwork of the dining hall,

past the breakfront, where December crockery

rested through the year, the keys of Dadda’s piano

yellow with the seasons, dressed for evensong,

Love, I have known you

in the improbable eyes of a gentle boy

who revved his bike along the summer shore

spraying me with sand, not knowing I was there.

Once more I tiptoe down the aisle
of chandeliers (their lustre lost a while ago)
encumbered with a decade’s dust
of fireflies’ wings interred in rust.

Behind their barely-covered lips,
The Whisperers of Above Rocks huddled
in the no man’s land where house-tops leaned
and clothes lines tilted, their arms akimbo

Their mother’s prayers lay folded

in unlikely places—next to common pins:

this prayer seeks forgiveness for her sins.

On her sewing table, lay sacred words she etched

All year the drought: the caked soil cracked
like brittle bones unearthed by starving dogs.
And on the screen sits this Nothingness
That’s lived between my ribs too long,

(Psychiatrist: So do you rage and scream your anger and disappointment or show your joy so others know what’s going on with you?
Patient: Only when I write)

They came in threes to Idlewild:
each woman with her basket and a child
at play behind her homespun skirt. They came
with needle marks and swollen fingers,