No. 1
I’m looking
I’m looking
for a love of space
And for that space to love me
A requited romance with space
Where is it?
How do I get there?
Am I here?
Is this house – this city – that place?
No. 2
The smell of tea tree oil and vanilla hung in the air.
A stain upon her old sundress
Sun poured through an open window
Burned matches on her bedside table
She turned to the door
Ready to depart from a place that held so much dark
But the gray followed even if she no longer stayed
in that room,
that building,
that city.
Tinctures and herbal remedies covered
That bedside table.
Dust appeared on three melted down lavender-scented candles
as the days turned to weeks and beyond
as she continued
to move away
from that space.
No. 3
Lilac bushes lined the walkway. Their perfume soaked the air with
an intangible sweetness.
My childhood played in my head
like a 1920s film – no words, just music and black and white imagery.
I was guided by autonomous feet to the end of the walkway
To the sea
That beckoned to me.
The frothy stew hit my legs, chilling me
from the outside in. The salt was
foreign to me.
I mistook that moment,
that longing for my great lake
as a sign to go
home.
Not yet.
Not now.
No. 4
I dreamt as the woman in the back of the china shop told me I must
I dreamt until I heard the voice she said to listen for told me that
I could not rest
I could not truly return
until I had fulfilled what I had been sent away to do.
I sensed the last moment of home there.
I knew when I felt the plane take off and my seat belt increased pressure across my chest that
this was it.
“Michigan’s in the rear view now” the song spat out at me.
The adventure, my life’s purpose awaited and I
I had to listen as the voice softly told me
to keep
moving, to keep
You are nowhere close to being done, it whispered, there is much still planned for you and it is not here, not in this space either.
Love the place while and if you can but keep
your bags packed. There is an expiration date on this space,
My darling,
My dove
And you will never see it coming.