Drop

Define home, since I left mine.

Home was the dolor, home was every breath.

Home was his car, home was the smoke in it,

Home was the smell he tried to get rid of

Before he hugged a kid.

Home was the wrist he rubbed perfume on.

Home was the matted hair under his cap.

Home was the street that looked yellow,

A moon he refused to believe could look like that,

Home was the same song, the same argument.

Left on a rack of questions,

On lacerated wounds, pressing cold fingers,

Around them, some freshly bruised,

Old ones, screaming agonisingly

Underneath his skin.

Clinging to his sweater, like the spray of perfume,

First like beads on the wool; later a smell that

Stayed hooked in the hundred knit holes.

Like a reverie, a dream.

I promised to tell him this, in one of mine.