WHEN I SLEEP I BREATHE
when i sleep i breathe,
i skip over my heart,
a fierce button sewn,
an unmade bed in the hall,
a winter tree pierces veined skies
a Gypsy child asks you for money
she touches your clothes
she has a gun in her pocket
together we suck cold dark
in the back of a flatbed truck
in a hammock meant for the small
(1993 – PROVINCETOWN)
i wrote this poem a long time ago, the winter i was contemplating leaving my husband, the father of my then 3 small daughters. at the time i wrote the poem i didn't realize exactly how seriously I was considering leaving, it kind of snuck up of me. like a crime of passion, one day i was considering it &, the next day, i was gone, having moved downstairs to the pull out couch, or at least one step closer to gone, where i have pretty much remained, in all the translations of gone that there could possibly be over the course of 15 years
of course i still love him
did then, always will
the winter i wrote this poem we had traveled together, me & W and the three kids -- 2, 5 & 7 -- visiting W's family in Germany for Christmas & then taking 2 trains (through the alps) to Genoa, Italy to get the ferry to Sardinia, where my sister was living, who had given birth to a baby a few months before. we could have flown but W & i had this idea that it would be an adventure to really travel the distance with the kids, sleeper trains & overnight ferries. i have a penchant for making transient homes & having little kids really accentuated that, as crazy as it may seem to all you mothers out there. i just love making a fort. i think that's probably about 60% percent of why i love being a mom
my sister & i have a complicated relationship, to say the least but i always have high hopes & the best intentions when i visit her, like it's going to be really cozy. besides she always lives in exotic locations that anyone would want to visit. there's a strain there, a kind of residue that expectation often leaves behind & it usually drives us both to cook (& eat) which works out for everyone else, but leaves us in the kitchen working off steam together in an uncomfortable silence
i haven't visited her in many years
the thing about this trip is that it was really cold, unreasonably cold for Sardinia, where most people don't heat their homes & have no way to do it in a pinch. some places might have little fireplaces, but they are hardly meant to heat the house & my sister didn't have one anyway. that New Year's it was actually snowing here & there & no one knew what to make of it
my sister & i weren't talking (much), the baby was crying, i was contemplating divorce but i didn't fully get that yet & i had 3 sparkly daughters who were dangerously & gorgeously obsessed with the wild dogs that roamed the streets. they weren't used to so many seemingly domesticated animals that didn't have anywhere to live & that seemed hungry
they wanted to hold them & feed them
i just wanted to be warm. i took many baths & stayed in there forever. i secretly went to the airport to see if there were any early flights home (i am a total baby). i begged W to get us a hotel room. eventually he did, down the street, just for a couple of nights. we could be messy & loud & it was almost hot there
there were gypsies everywhere. everywhere there were kids asking for money. on the stretch of deserted highway on the way to the virtually empty resort hotel that we ended up camping out in, was a gypsy camp. i saw a tent big enough for several families with a fire roaring inside, burning right on the floor in the middle of the (home). it looked powerful enough to burn the whole thing down & everything around it as well. people were standing around, staring into the fire. one kid was dancing
at night in the hotel, even though i was warm, i couldn't sleep. i didn't know what was going on with me. nowhere felt like home, & somehow i knew home wouldn't either
a few months later i walked out. my lawyer told me women never leave the house, & to go back. i did eventually, many months later but very, very reluctantly & not for long. i didn't want it (home) & slowly but surely, with every place i have lived since, i got less and less attached to it (home)
i don't really know what home means other than a safe feeling inside & believe me i know it when it is there
it looks like many things & it is elusive (but worth the truth of it)
i still make forts everywhere & i do love the ability to close the door anywhere, even if it is just while i am in the bathtub or shower somewhere. i can find a world for myself
now i am the most transient i have ever been & i was worrying about it, til a couple of days ago when I allowed myself to feel how complete i was. utterly. totally. i don't know what that means today but i'm not going to make a problem out of it
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