Let’s call this love: the waves folding over your head
like the wings of a tent flap, the suffocating confines
of warm blankets in a morning you don’t remember entering
the heavy arm of a stranger thrown over your chest that won’t let you go.
This, let’s call this last breath: home, the sinking resignation

of concrete boots pulling you across the threshold into the kitchen
the anchors that tie you to the stove, the ballast bags of screaming children
that know who you are and why you’re here
even if you don’t. Here, this place you belong

we’ll draw a circle around it on the map
so you know where you’re supposed to be, a tiny point engulfed
in winged possibility that you will never know, those dreams
will not be allowed to hatch.
There are alarms set to different times all through this house
and your feet know when and where to take you to answer them all.