There is a crucial point of engagement
I haven’t perfected.
The characters flake-up.
I am typing ‘friends’
‘Memory’
This is my story
I sit in silence
I have something to
make
They have ascribed my sentence, ‘writer’
Downstairs a ‘mother’ in role,
In grievance,
Shakes
‘Daughter’ and looks
Into the fire.
In flames
We see the possibility of removal,
She exhumed to grandmother instead
Thinking of the adult hunched over typeface, larger
Than ten year old she tucked in the same bed.
She does not read the words, only looks
At lines as if they present a path
The grandparents ease the phrase of self-absorbed
Over the television’s canning laugh.
For their idea of definition
The possibility still in hands
Is for ‘work’ to making a living
And yet I adopted the typist’s stance.
The lowering of the gaze, prepared
That to the old I shall never make a life
Answer to the pine of my own wrists
When all they want is space to cry
You've made it
When I lose the art of pretending, faking
Curl my mouth
And feel it – ache.
We throw nouns around
Like we know where.
I suppose you’ve done it too
Bursting into tears still in the stairs
Of your family home
Now just a house on an avenue.
Parts returned, but nothing there.
And in the night you lie alone
Note the space your palm occupies
Open, on the pillow
Caching cold
The look you will never see
In your own eyes
