Breadcrumbs

DEVIN KELLY

Inside my body is a body
where I keep my body.
Inside the room I hold my body
– prone, dying fish, wanderer
exhausted –
with the hands of my other
body & listen for the sound
of the living breathing
through the walls. Outside
the window. Smoking on the fire
escape. Once I escaped
the first hole I dug for myself
I watched the sun descend
into the hole that is the other side
of the world & spent
my whole life chasing it
by moving deeper into my body.
When I entered the room
I walked through the door
of your mouth with my mouth.
We breathed together & our breath
gave life to flowers. I once
read a story of a man
who grew a fir tree
in his lung. Our bodies
are worlds & these worlds
war as worlds do. They live
& die. They toil against their walls.
So much in us struggles
with so much in us. If there is truth
at all, it must be this. You hung
frames on empty walls
in an empty room. The frames,
filled with pictures of you
in other rooms. When finished,
you held your knees to your chest
& waited for them to fall.
I was just outside the door.
The importance, I wanted to say,
is that there is anything
worth breaking. I opened
the door & brought the outside
with me & it felt like all
we don’t know feels –
silent, trembling, a thin
vibration rippling the dark water
of the sky. I found you
when the room balanced before
the idea of becoming the ruin
of a room. We live here, now,
in this act of balancing. Here,
where all things
extend toward all things
but never touch. Isn’t it
beautiful? All night
we hold each other
without knowing
we hold each other.

• • •