Poem of the Week

We showed up late to the house of words.

Now we grope our way down stairs as painful 

as vertebrae and search between the wall's plastered

shards for some living syllable—sister to bread

and poverty—to bring our lips.

Such as a name, a woman's name.

The bone of a woman's name lost between the stones

of these walls that once upon a time housed

flesh inside. And perhaps a jewel

a little box

a mirror you could ask

so many things.