Brick & Mortar, Beat & Breath

“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's: And Three Stories 

I used to live
there,
and there,
and there.

Sometimes, 
at odd times,
I dream of them--
that I am still living there,
with whomever I lived with,
slept with,
wounded with
there.

Look, here is the street
where I walked late one night,
my face wet with tears
when my marriage was breaking up.
And here,
here is the busy road where my screams stopped the cars
when my baby ran out among them.

Here is the table
where we ate Sunday breakfast.
I was doing impressions and had my ex and our son in stitches.
Here is another table
in the same house,
where I left my ring in a drawer
because it had lost its meaning.

Here is the yard
where my older brother put his football helmet on my three year old head,
and our dad snapped a picture.
I was bent at the knees, laughing so hard.
I could hardly see!
Behind me are the evergreen trees, new then,
that would grow so high and wild they finally had to be replaced.

Here is the door
where I carried in a four month old puppy,
to meet his new brother and sister.
They are gone now, and the puppy is a frail old man.

Loving brick and mortar seems absurd,
but we do it.
Loving anything with a heartbeat,
anything that needs to breathe the air,
anything that eventually will pass away,
seems crazy,
but we do it
again and again,
because it is worse to bear one's heartbeat,
one's breath,
one's dwindling days
alone. 
_______

for Play It Again, Toads #3. I chose Kerry's "The Story."