"Crumbs” – 4/28/20

there is poetry in crumbs around the places
where I have been attempting to forge
some semblance of home
 
and there is resonance around the hum
of the mini-fridge whether or not it succeeds
at keeping my fragile berries cold enough

there is soulful humor in the way
my renter's poster - strategically hung -
reflects in its glass like a mirror promoting
 
the U.S. Department of the Interior
the National Parks Service in muted greens
browns and blacks the graphics resembling
 
an abstract, post-modern cactus around which
the eye gazing closer can decipher faces
of foxes, wings of butterflies, polka-dotted birds
 
when I first found this haven of escape from horror
I was relieved beyond measure to be avoiding
risk and in so doing granted myself the time-space
 
to contemplate the longevity of discord's
cacophonous silence rampaging spirituality
with the intensity of a first kiss, unwanted or chosen
 
there is always something about the first in anything
whether it be trauma or salvation that throws
the earth off her axis and I am no different

from the earth I spring every morning wishing
hoping imagining discovering climbing out
of these reeds like a grasshopper impatiently
 
making my way back from the ledge
of eventually toward the castle wall watching
current events flash before my eyes
 
as though the strobe of hopelessness' seduction
could one day help us pave our way back
to normalcy, let alone paradise oh sweetheart
 
let me leave this evidence of what I have spilled
recklessly on the floor just a little longer
for where there are messes there is potential
 
to try harder to be better at keeping house
but to keep (be)coming clean now
has become such an act of aggression
 
against memory the times when simply vacuuming
my own bright blue shag carpet barefoot unguarded
in anticipation of company was a glimpse of heaven