Suddenly

on belonging

Rilke named bird nests as external wombs
Most of us only get one
no safety in spittle, thatch and twigs
but I guess you build home elsewhere
still wanting to be free

When I was ten I shoved my post-its 
in an overhead projector
Just a passing flatter, to see if they would burn

They did

Acrid little smoke, creeping up the aisles
Then silence 
and shouting that never stitched
itself at all toward mercy

New York? A shelter? Never
Forget Bob Dylan, he was out of his mind
A hive, perhaps
stacked unbreathably together
but sometimes palpably alone

How strange, then, to find myself so wrapped 
in arms and giggles on the Henry Hudson
swaddled by tenderness and smog filled air

The world didn’t offer softness
We took it anyway
drinking greedily the sap
from nests of braided laps
overflowing from this Camry