My mother is calling at midnight again.
I’ve lost her house. I wore it under a dress. I wore it
six times into the new year. My mother wants to know
if she should leave. Her father is dying, her father
is Beirut and Akka and a single building in this world.
I don’t know where the chickens go when it snows.
I know he is dying. Yes. I know because he tells us:
also the X-rays, the flesh sinking into his bones.
Like what? A boat. A plank. My body displaces
water from the bathtub. I colonize. I toss fish bones
in the garden; so many birds pecking at the stems.
The building is on a mountain. Did I already say that?
There’s a metal gate that rolls over each window.
This is how we keep the moon out. Still, America got in.
Still, there’s a sign with his name out front. I won’t tell you
where it comes from. I won’t tell you what he sold for it.