I’m in a bit of trouble I say, as if two were a number
something is bending,
or has
it scares me when you say that and I think of the maps
occupying the second shelf on the bookcase
in my one room
the lines on them recently tread as the sun moves down
the wall and into the room through closed blinds
the maps eventually seeping
a disease in the making
or the way some people seem to bounce off the ground
as they run
was I ever that young I wonder while I wait out the
minutes of you falling asleep in
twitches and jolts

hours are needed to get to the next hours
how do I explain the way it rolls by to take me with it
postcards held by obscured magnets on the fridge
a puzzle on the table
bad country music and jesus holding down the radio
in places where the smell of you is lost
while pancake make-up and compact mirrors
recall seventies haircuts
or my lack of memory when I try to find some rain
outside the window
of the house I grew up in

it takes a while to come around sometimes,
like prophets
in storied containers of genes, myth-makers
or cartographers
what’s the difference really when everyone is
trying to tell you
what they think you want to hear

some hours then, in some places, are enough
which is hard to explain unless you have that need
thinking back now, I grew up in the shadows
of the san gabriels
in a place where the sun was often gone before
the light
none of that remembered until I moved away