home, and the many definitions

i can still smell blood in the room your mama bore you

soaked into the wood panelling and flowered sheets

i want to lick the walls, but hold steady

fearing splinters, and the heavy choke of iron

at dinner, across the table, you drain glasses of wine

and watch birds fly low through the valley

while your mother laughs, teeth all too white, 

telling stories of your childhood I was never meant to hear

when we are in bed we peel the stickers from the ceiling that you

stuck there as a boy

and try to paste them to each other so that we, too

will glow like stars

but the backs are dusty and they crumble in our hands

like all your mountain relics, tucked away and left to rot

there are no houses for miles

only craggy rock and pine trees 

fanned out against the sky and bending 

with nostalgic weight, as if the branches could

arc down low enough for you to reach,

and catapult you to someplace newer, 

where your knees are less grass stained and

your father's more proud and 

you have something to show for your years

i am homesick for traffic lights, blaring car horns

hours spent pensively smoking on the fire escape,

a night barely dimmer than day

but we cannot leave, we are urged towards third helpings

you pour another glass of wine

i try not to cry

and all the while, mama laughs and laughs and laughs