Home Not Home

“There might be problems at home.
Swiftly the pieces fall into place.”
--“Voyager,” Srikanth Reddy

There might be problems at home.
a stopped clock, a split boiler, an exploding
can of hash—I don’t know
what they are,
because I am not home.
I’m never home.
I am out, wandering
painting streets where the rain
has left them blank
Finding the woods
in between the cracks of cities
dancing
slowly
where the streetlights chide me
and I don’t belong.
Those pieces that are falling
are impossible to catch without a basket
when you’re so far
from the warm kitchen of your mothers
and the decisions
that were easy to make
playing
under the kitchen table.

There might be problems at home.
--But what is home, anyway?
What’s a life, in that
potatoes butter cornbread red gingham radio sunshine
warm kitchen
where your mothers still cook?
a pig, a raspberry, a chicken, a leaf of parsley?

Swiftly the pieces fall into place.
Flour, sand, and time into a colander
chicken broth and rosemary into a pot
I cannot go home—but I can; but I can’t
I can’t yet create my own home
in these woods and cracks and cities
I must settle for
the leaky boiler, the stopped clock,
the rattling, laughter-sobs of the coal furnace
the rotary dial phone
I can see when I reach out and close my eyes
waiting, to rrring, to tell me
all will be well at home.