Not meant for shelter

We’ve built a dwelling

where it is easy to forget

the days when we laid our

bodies close, skin on skin

in the sharp fumes of a miraculous fire

The nights when we put up our faces

to see new worlds, new gods

Our mouths bent upward—a smile

for we were specks, warm and familiar

in a wide ocean of meaning

Somewhere that memory festers

buried down in our cells

pinching our nerves

bloating our intestines

The remembrance of feet and hands

stamping, slapping, drubbing—the first music

We have staked claims now

built things:

Walls not meant for shelter

Buildings to quiet that raucous, reckless jubilee

that oozes across our sky each night

What need for fire

in the holy blue hum of the great screens?

It is easy to forget

those invisible cells, that invisible wound

the part of the story that divides us

the part when we learned to build walls

This is our patch—don’t forget

with our shred of dyed silk

dangling in a watery, futile wind

Go back, go back, fellow body

take your warm skin to another fire

the light here is precious

in the shadow of our walls

where we cram in the rare slivers

and feed on the righteous freedom
of forgetfulness.