“We bring our lares with us” – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Where do you live? they ask-
I gesture towards my house across the street
By this they mean ‘Abode’ or ‘Lair’,
For Sale sign still impaling the front lawn
the place I rest my head. Where ‘Bed’ is.
We just moved in last night, I say. Slept on a mattress
Because where we sleep (we dream), there
on the floor, no furniture, moonlight streaming in,
we most frankly are? Where nails have torn
our clothes, damp, hanging on the banister. Our breaths
into the walls, where skin, once shed, has nestled
clouds, filigree in cold air (we have no heating yet) escaping
into the cracks and body fused with brick
and it reminded me of camping
we live there and everywhere else we simply-
under the stars, out in the wild woods
float? Deflated spectres, suspended and diffuse,
and how exhilarating I found it as a child
uncontained without four walls, foundations, roof?
to be feral for a night or two.
Until we return, Home Again! and we recompose
Tomorrow the moving van will come
moulding our selves, retracting into the niches
And we will find a place for all our things.