I do not know what it is in me that would want to bunker down

in a fairy story that could nutshell

nine hundred years to my two

and would have me speak

with the throat of a bird

or the throat of a reed by the side of a lake

with nowhere to go.

That would have me exchange

my blue and white bedroom for feathers

cups of gold for handfuls of sand

love, for thunder and brine.

Except this. I toy with banishment

a second time and a third

but my heart isn’t in it.

I already know that

if I have been required to fly

over the history of my house

and see only nettles and scutch

where my children’s home should be

then I will also be woken by bells

with their eight o’clock definite truth

so I may walk in the room of my own breath

and say we will leave it at that.