A Place That Wasn’t Mine

By Holly Parkinson

 

I pick you out on a map a year ago today

Received the blueprints for the house and

traced every sliver of white with my fingers

To then be demolished

A hole within me cut clearly with a tower

Chiselled by a morning choir

 

I am reduced to nothing

stripped bare and splayed on glorified

parchment

and perhaps a little girl still reaches out for

a dark blue ribbon

and perhaps a spinster cranes her neck to

look above again

 

but perhaps a hand will brush your walls

and perhaps the wall will exert equal in

return

to breathe with me

respire with my very being

even if for just a second

for the same soft navy to loop around my

wrist

and wave, wave you down the river

 

I still bow to you, but perhaps you should

bow to me

and ask

‘why do you kneel for what is really only

bricks and mortar?’

 

Photograph: Stacy via Creative Commons and Flickr