Uninhabited
That January we ate ramen, broth sharp
as vinegar. Sipped the sizzling disappointment
while snow cascaded from the second floor
until our city grew unrecognizable. By April
love was a chore, in service of something
that wouldn’t come. Spring, razor-hot July
into August—another autumn, uninhabited.
I dreamt of gardens to rip bare. I dreamt
of my childhood home, stripped of its topsoil,
three acres of mud where we planted grass
every year. In November we drove south
to the caverns of Kentucky, where the guide
clicked off her lantern, said to wave
our hands before our faces, see nothing.
Dark as ocean, blank as the black
at the center of my body—
that small cave I carried everywhere,
year into year, home to none.
