I lived in a house with four levels, incredible.
first floor, second, cellar, attic, which was my
space, all mine, my mind. with two dormered
windows, in each of two rooms, Palladian,
small palladian windows, of glass that
had passed the hundred-year mark as we
came to live in it. At the end of my street, at the turn
at the end of the block, was a crossroad
with the name of the roads that together signaled
the named of the place I was born. I navigated
these rooms. And knew corners and contours. Imagined
into beyond, and back past what connected
to what was unconnected and what might
become linked over caesura, leap over the little break,
that misfiring synapse going across that space –
so much room in that house of time –
foundation of granite, roof of slate. I navigated
that space for twelve years. Incredible.
and when I left, like the emigrant,
I reached and retched. Ahimè!
That space [is] inscribed into me
my brain my body
my feet have been set down into a wide room