To Hold Up the Floor

I thought walking around the edges of the room
would give me time to hold the house up
longer, thicken the walls with sheer force
of motion, keep the roof up high – pacing
works so well. And so I haven’t opened the door yet.

If I could have more time – but blood is rivering
down my arms as if I’d always been the bed of it;
as if my skin collected at the bottom, on the edges,
and now trees grow by my side. If I could bide my time
and hold off the end days until it opened onto
understanding – just let me wear a groove around
the edges, pace through to the foundations
and carry the walls on my neck, if only there was
that much time, I would be earth bearer – and pall bearer –
and water bearer for when the oceans come.

But I didn’t even open the door yet because I thought
you’d be too large outside. You’d span the sky with your wings,
the rising sun would be your throne and your crown
the rising moon. And how can I understand
such magnitude? Such a knock you have;
if I could walk in step to its music, there wouldn’t be
this rush in me. This blood flowing out and down and under the cracks
of windows and doors disrupts my rhythm, I can hear my heart
syncopated with your gentle call, can’t latch onto the beat,
can’t get out, can’t get down under the dirt and lift up houses
and houses,
and houses, lord.

How gently you knock when your blood
courses underneath, can you teach me that?
It looks like half the battle, knowing
what’s behind the door and what will come out,
in the end. I haven’t opened it yet because I thought
I would find a knowing like yours and emerge under
the world, pall bearer, wall holder, anything.

The land is uneven, even without me wearing it to grooves.
The walls fall down no matter how fast I walk.
If I stop, you’ll want me opening doors. I can’t be
opening doors. I’ll look out and there you’ll be, big, winged,
a million faces, a million broken pieces of land, a million promises
I wish to make and cannot make because I’m fading light
in your sparks, I’m not even shuttering the windows, I’ll just look out
slowly and be dusk on my own, and then be darkness, and then be night.

It is best sight that way. I cannot see
for the walls, I cannot build anything
and you tear me down without tearing me down
to remake me; and you shake the ground
without burning your words in the sky.
Or if I can’t read, I don’t know what to say.

The land is uneven with your living blood
and redder than mud in Jerusalem.
If all our feet were temples, if we’d been
consecrated at the soles, we’d hold you up
with eyelashes and tongues and songs so holy,
we’d burn past death to sing them.
What will you make of us now, swirled and layered
into the earth, what will you raise above us
to bring us awe again? With the song dead
on our lips and your unmistakable presence.

I haven’t opened the door yet. What a leap to fall to you.