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House of My Life (landays)

how can you call this a quiet night
when inside the skull there is a ceaseless ricochet?

empty your mind, you prophets tell me
but do you not know how many would then be homeless?

all my bodies are in here with me
all my mothers, all the mosquito-bitten evenings

we are eating mangoes and guavas
we are leaving home, again and again and again

we hear the echoes of slamming doors
and the quiet shush of pages turning, returning

counting out the years, bites, loves, the beats
all my children, my selves, the loud repeating futures

this is an endless house of my life
do not make me tear it down, where would I live and rest?
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