We broke into the old apartment
to look for things we'd lost when moving on
and moving out, across the street
and sixteen cities South. I tried to take
the poems from the windows but memories
are more permanent than marker. Mornings
seemed longer when sunrise wrote words
on bare walls and bare skin, or when
I traced end-rhymes and metaphors into the curve
of your hips.

These days we don't sleep.

and I couldn't find them; instead
we found furniture that spelled apathy
and wrong words on right angles, organized
and dead. They painted over
our names curled above the bedroom, they washed
the windows with writer's block and fixed the draft
that we'd called Dennis. They crafted locks
to keep out the mystery of movement.

and please, understand yourselves,
learn that white walls and black thoughts
are another portrait that ages
when you do not, and surely
there are other ways
to know peace than
quiet and clean.

When we drove home we trailed kite string
from the broken window, and signed our names
on the highway's dotted line
so we could pay them back
when they started to care.