YASHIKA GRAHAM
and the yard is dark
no one has cooked
this evening
there is no smoke
in the kitchen
no kitchen
I come back barefoot
barrelling down the hill
I run over gravel over grass
press my toes into the soaked earth
my body pushing through the black
I come back
see I come home Mama
I come running and forget
your warning of rusty nail
and walking late at night
forget how you say the heart
must bend but could break
come apart yet appear together
like the wood wall still stitched
to its bit of roof now resting at the gate
I come back
see I come home
and I never see it
I miss the black tank
knocked now from its perch
see only the steps to nowhere
and the earth bare
I miss the chance to hold the quiet
and all I do is wail in this place
walking into the hall
barefoot on blue door
the way open
what was wall
is window
There is no one here
just the jars my mother left behind
and the hall twisted from left to right
what’s left of the ceiling are strands
of wispy ply and beyond there
piercing through the crisscross
of plaited wood a hint of night blue
Sky is that you?
I go home spinning in the little hall
and do not see my grandmother’s
knitted blanket or know I have left it
not until I watch the memory again
nor do I realize I have rescued
none of my mother’s things
that all I’ve done is dig my hand
in the dirt breaking the blue belle
to plant and the red water grass
I come home and come away
from the dark as much bashed in
as the house I was born in
at once full and empty and still
looking back from the gate
See I come home Mama
but late too late
