Windowsills droop,
walls, tired, sigh;
I know this sky,
here it bends nigh,
my feet and thighs
have roots
here.

I know these stars
that command the wind
to press on the tree-frames
and not to rescind
until the secret names
of each trunk creak with age
in the quiet and dark;
but shrill sounds of shame
interrupt, promise sin:
she might kill him tomorrow,
and you with him.

These stairs walk my legs
to my brother at five,
to the youth that begs
not to drink the dregs
of a punish contrived
–parents faux-aligned–
in severity; kegs
will separate their lives,
then their mother.

Here I’m almost entire
with each moment that stains
these rooms that release
hordes of motions and pains
punching, pinning –and feasts
for the cousins, who gain
shows of care, and then leave;
then we three: abandoned with the performance.

A glade that prays!
by my lips, animate;
the shop’s mote-flocks of sawdust
sing stillness, whilst th’ haze
of my idols do gauge
how much flesh books can eat
if they’re chessed to raze
my family, before the stage
reveals them.

I’ve mown this lawn,
this lawn’s mown me —
leveled carefree
hours of waste
into ruins of place,
so the dawn’s
touchless kiss
aims amiss
stretching her neck
over the treeline’s deflect.

Some walls keep out,
some walls hold in;
that hearth-flame’s shout
has been about
(abroad began,
across sea it swam),
but patient, installed,
lurked decades, then called
one midwinter’s midnighting,
pulled forward one hand
to suffer knife-cut, uniting
the shards of my clan,
gaze captivated,
shimmer escalated,
promised seed:
and with greed,
I salivated
after tables, feasts, heirs
with hearts linked by Lares;
–broke gaze, went upstairs
to bed, un-ensnared from these
things, to chant Compline.