home #1, fragment

Home #1


Where you are,
and the oak leaves, threaded
by a green needle
held by a shade-cooled
hand that pulls
the hesitance of spring
into summertime
with a chalk-blue
breeze. Where
my mother
birthed me. Where I birthed
myself. Under cathedral spire,
a Russian priest named Yuri,
the first lines of Ariel,
white-hot,
the priest’s hands in blessing
over wherever you are,
on a grey sandy beach
building forts from
smooth driftwood.
In the half-second pulsations
of life-blood,
heart-to-lungs-to-mouth,
the quick, steadying breath—