I don’t have a quiet place that isn’t too noisy anymore, someone always talking, the pool fountain rushing and the tanagers scuttling back and forth to scratch the sand and flutter wings into the shade.  I had a nest, with broken eggs and the soft down of baby bird fur shed in their departure where I cried for tomorrow and closed doors. I had a path down a weedy river’s edge where I hunted for hideaways from which to launch my ships and itchy starched elastic snapped lace to pull me away from setting free.  I am broken on the gravelly field like a puzzle to put back together but somehow all the blood got up and walked off and there is only skin stretched under the hot skin and the bones poking  that even those considering stew walk off in dismay. I am a thousand fists shaken at the night sky at the burning embers and twisted clouds at those escaping far and away. I am the turned soil, the forgotten names of every plant that carried my soul, the tree of sacrifice painted against my belief in life and the downy comforter, nestlike, can you find my eyes any more? Did they poke those out too so that I wouldn’t remember tea rose scent or the paper of carnation petals or the pavement my feet have always known.