1
Reclaim, reclaim, be fastened
to this corner.
Sprinkle water in each room.
Slow down your breath,
paint walls with praise.
Say home in each doorway.
The bell with the rough tongue
rings sweetest.
Reclaim refrigerator
shelves, space for a cat,
the mortgage, the ceilings.
Wash tears from your bedsheets.
Your mattress, fertile, receives you.
Never forget candles.
Your friends’ voices, residual,
steep the hallway in earthly light.
2
Cut your own groove.
Plant a grove of interior
trees, name it Quiet.
Let your words fray
at their edges and move
into folds.
The lake offers you its sweep.
Receive.
3
You always
wanted hard things, rock
and oak and truth
from inside another’s life.
Let no and yes braid
through your settled fingers,
knotting something you have
never seen before.
