david jewell poet

Home is melting inside my heart.
Or, home is frozen in my veins.

Or, which home. Which way is home.
Is home a place I left––or a place I haven’t arrived.

I met a gypsy on the road, and she called herself Home.
She said that was her name. Home.

I asked her, if she could live anywhere in the world,
where it would be.

She said, inside her own body––that’s what she learned.

I asked her if that’s where she lived.

She said, sometimes, but she was still learning, so she kept moving,
kept traveling, until she felt like a wave, only a wave, in the ocean.

She asked where I wanted to live.

I said I felt like someone aimed a shotgun at a map of the world and
pulled the trigger––there were about a hundred bulls eyes––but,
trying to pick one place . . . I couldn’t explain it. . .

I asked her waht she did when she felt lonely, or got sick.

She said all that wasn’t real and it was just confusion so she kept traveling
until it passed.

I asked her what her last name was, where her parents were from,
all that stuff.

She said her name was Home.
She said her last name was Inside.
Home Inside. Then she grinned, and said,
unless the weather is really nice, then it’s Outside.
Home Outside.

She didn’t answer anything about the other stuff.
She might have had a brother named Road Hawk,
but she was vague about all that.

Then Home went her way and I went mine.

When I try to live inside my body it feels like ten cats
are fighting each other inside a paper bag.
When I try to live inside my body it says
it wants to be the ocean.

And my body wonders about that other home. . . the one
we are called to when our time here is done.

But for now––
Home is melting in my heart.
Or home is frozen in my veins.
I don’t know where I am supposed to go.
Or if I am supposed to stay.

dj
10-15-13
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