Christina: What It Means

moss heart

Christina: What it Means

or what does it mean, staying

until the end or a month 

to the end because what if 

they take me

alive from here

and not if they take me dead

what if it's like my last

thing to know I'm losing,

something I've known about

all my crawling life: the par

-ticular lineament 

of every floorboard and knot

in the them and how on

especially tired days

when he'd be painting

in one of the attic

rooms I'd settle

my hip at a half

-way point and make myself

a story how if I could

write them they'd change

day to day depending

on the light or lack

and what all's been put up

with or taken

down, hands or feet or these

days and years the rug beneath

and the heat we meet with, me

and this hip/in/knit and friction.

Consider this: fingers

sifting through each strip of ripped

denim and other salvage then tucked up

in the warp like Al dancing out

of the whole tub of rope

on the boat before he lets it

go and knowing those

lobster traps will set on bottom

and just wait it out and never

know when he'll be back or that

he brought his boat in forever

for me and they'll never

not ever see him again

or the weir net he knits and knots

all winter the way I knit and knot

all these strips of cut up coats 

and all what are come to rags

and we make it

the two of us in this house

all these years with little

or nothing to go on but what's under

us and Jesus they'll come in later

pinched and coughing and plugging

their noses and take

every little take and maybe 

burn the rest: Mama's dress Daddy's

wool vest that by some magic

I'd made into a sleigh and pulled

myself through

every room I could

knot by knot board foot by board

foot and after all

this time

beside any replica you care

to find and believe it once was

mine there'd be

between certain pine boards

and me

Andy stepping

never in a goddamn hurry

to get me, and yet tender

to his dead Helen

back to where I was

before who? Paris? and he'd come

and brush from my cheek

the dust and cinder and (tucked

in the side of my lips)

a strand of needing a wash hair.