In my pocket, I keep a map of the kitchen

of my childhood home. Even so, I cannot remember

the clock with its flowers

or the small window’s quince sky

and what it was waiting for. The untied

curtains. There were enough of us complete

in our dress and harbor and the seared

heart of just living. Most days renascent

prayer or excerpt or whatever

letdown poked into our narrative. Then, winter

hours with sockets and another fat plate.

The house was a hush on a dead end. Outlined

with hedges holding innocent

clusters. We were not there to be discovered, but to simple

within our container. Our pallid footsteps.

Any attention took its tangles. The phone rose

stories in statements. My room topped the house.

I lay in it and never saw even a moon,

but learned to keep myself

as fable and exclusion. Reading until I lessened

to some exact render, and what I contained then

was the yolk of my rights.

And though I asked to leave during each sermon,

I knelt when told to,

lucid with repetition. I was one solid

shadow. Each tomorrow condensed and kept me

midsentence and foolish

with these elbows. Every day, same purple

garment. Which hours were flattened?

At which table did I make a legend?

What blade and which direction? Many years

every time the house held either shouting

or abundance, and of course

looking back I do not believe any of it.