When it meant something to have an ivy covered house, home
Was the yellow corners of my father’s family album
Worn down with recounting the birth of the youngest, at one a.m.
The death of their smallest, twelve minutes alive,
It was a memoir I hoped to write down in departure
traveling away from here, traveling anywhere
When it meant something to have an ancient surname, my house
held the left hand of my mother, the guiding light held tight
Through rooms I knew from her stories, in houses that belonged
to other people now; would see as we were passing through.
Here is where the chair sat that belonged to your grandmother
My mother was forever with her hand in mine, unwinding our family-lore.
I filed the grooves in my house key down to the gloss,
Lost the scent of my window boxes and potted flowers.
In the towers casting hand shadows in a window haze
In the crooked cobblestone margins where it meant something
To have an ivy covered house home
Is a moving target.
—ECW
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