Dear Exile,

no matter how often I think it,
I can't stop loving the first
cold slap of water coming through
the pipes in winter, the cornhusk
smell of heat pressing down
on eyelids in summer; 
                     on my face, my skin.
Windowless nights
and how they dress
in persistent 
light—

And if I gave up, 
if I stopped desiring
the ordinary things, ordinary 
rituals we hardly thought about 
                      even as we did them—

Could I forget, completely?

Moths tuck themselves 
into drawers, where they 
work out their hidden
citzenships in scripts
of perforated silver.

The taut threads 
of the hammock loosen;
                     day loses to night,
and night again to day, 
 
Who was I 
before the earth
shook my world to pieces,
before parts of barely formed
history were buried along with beams
of a house that no longer exists?

At the Chinese restaurant 
they served coffee 
or service tea in thick white cups, 
and old men in frayed sweaters 
hunched eternally over chessboards.

Roads wound through 
mountains but at a certain juncture, 
           one could glimpse the sea.

Perhaps I am that house to which 
I can no longer return.

Even now, more than just 
the stones are forgetting me.