Vacant Possession

A seedling has come up through the floor
where someone took the copper.

~

Two leaves.
Still wearing the seed on its head.

~

I know the feeling.
You arrive dressed for somewhere else
and spend years calling it a choice.

~

Before morning, the concrete takes
whatever warmth my knees can spare.
Through the broken windows
the sky begins its slow dilution.

~

Nobody has told the seedling
what sort of place this is.

~

Once, someone swept here.
Someone opened a window
because another person felt too warm.
Then hands came back for anything worth taking.

~

I would like to believe
the room has learned something.

~

But why must everything damaged
qualify as a teacher?
I have survived several things
and still pull doors marked PUSH.

~

The little plant knows less than I do.
It spends what it has
on another leaf.

~

There must be something before wisdom
we are allowed to keep.

~

I move closer to the window.

~

Perhaps hunger moves me.
Perhaps an old instruction in the blood
has mistaken brightness for rescue.
I cannot find a single want
I made entirely myself.

~

Still, when my shadow covers the seedling,
I shift.

~

Beyond the roof, the sun consumes
another portion of itself.
Down here, a stripe of warmth
reaches a floor nobody intends to mend.

~

Nothing has been forgiven.
The missing wire stays missing.

~

I put music on my phone.

~

It offers to resume
where I left off.

~

I begin to sing.
Badly enough to establish
that nobody has forced me.

~

The room gives my voice back
with more room in it.

~

I try the next note.

~

Beside my knee, the seedling holds up
its two ridiculous leaves,
and I hold the third note
long enough to run out of breath.

.