Yem

how make this place
home?

what is home
anyway?

& where
this place

that needs
be home?

how we
make it

whenever,
wherever:

roof, rooms, fire,
walls, bed, stairs

to walk up
and down,

shelves
to order thought,

doors to open,
close, to

keep out
and in,

taps to turn on,
water

to drink
and wash,

light to read
and bathe in:

_____

we, is
always home

we, is
where we live

when,
whenever,

where,
wherever,

with you
is,

has always
been

(so
unalone,

so,
unsingular)

home,
at last

_____

a place to be born
and wake in,

somewhere
to be,

to
return to,

to go out
from:

a shelter
subject to floods, to fire

and other
attritions,

to bombing,
demolition,

to pestilence
and plague,

to bulldoze
eviction

from anywhere
and everywhere,

to exile
from

here,
from now

_____

to be without
a heart

is to be
without a home,

to be without
& within

at once,
a home

Source: Poetry (October 2020)