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 shapeโ
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.