Thu, 19 February

liturgy for the boxes Let us lift what is heavy. Let us carry what cannot be named from the room where it was named. Let us strip the walls of their blue-tack scars. Let us roll the carpets back until the floor remembers it was always bare. Let us bless the hire truck, its ramp a tongue receiving everything we tongued into shape— crib slats, kettle, the curtains that never fit but tried. Let us bless the body count: three spines, three appetites, three ways of sleeping that must learn new darknesses. Let us bless the key we will not copy. Let us bless the key we have not yet held. Let us sit on the bare floor just once, the smallest one between us, and say nothing into the room that is no longer ours, and hear it say nothing back, and call that prayer.