Friday, July 19, 2013

Foundation.

-my grandfather was a carpenter
he built our house, he gave
its insides furniture, fastened
our lives furnished our names

i’m told it smelled bright and whole

babies delivered, weddings celebrated
holidays survived, dishes broken
discontents mended, walls hardened
furniture repaired, children aged

-when the flames ate it, lapped it up

and at last stopped, the ashes were wet
and still, we stood over them slumped
and cried in generations, foraging
inside the dank black skeleton

phoenixes of our past did not rise

a taste stayed in our throats and burned
refusing to die or be swallowed leaving
us looking for the old one, on brick walls
friends' warm beds, in kitchen pots
and anywhere else love may have been hiding

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