by Harvey Lillywhite
It ought to be on a beach with pure white sand,
Basking or bobbing women and men
Naked in the surf; or, on that bouldered coast
Where my first ancestors among waves crashing
So stunned by the barbaric invasion carved ships into
Grandfather rocks so deeply even I would remember;
Or, two miles high on the tip
Of a high granite peak above a large city
In the wind’s constant roar, at the height
Where mere fact returns to fantasy,
To look down on the busy world
Grown tiny and powerless—one of these
Should be my favorite place on earth.
But these are not the places
Where I am fed. The truth is
The small townhouse, the ignoble
Address, the matching blue furniture
With the huge clownish orange flowers,
And the islands of clutter, monuments
To a life of preservation; a son coughing;
The TV being slept in front of–it’s here.
The dog abides at the sliding balcony door,
Her nose nudging the curtain.
Besides, it’s effortless on the Cote d'Azur
To holiday in the grand
Insouciant shush of surrender,
To be mindful of the seventh chakra
Flowering into eternity. What’s here
Is knowing the constant failure
Of the everyday, the love that buys
Nothing, the truest kind always
Unspoken, hardly prized, which here
Holds all the pieces together.