Home, Not Home
by Megan M. Garr
It is as though our hope had begun to hover in a void.
—Robert Baker
We’re still waiting for the poems to be
written about this.
Don’t mistake me, this is not a poem
about this. I am only looking down
from a plane and saying
I made this, too,
the perfect land
of my expatriation, I fly over it and can say
the maps were right
it looks just like this
but cannot say that, later,
returning home. Home keeps going—
you can’t keep the shape
in one eyesight, and maybe that’s the problem.
We’re still waiting for all the poems.
We will divide them equally among ourselves,
one for the cure to cancer, one for every border
we have longed to cross, which is all of them.
And a poem for the mix tape you lost
with that song on it, the one you haven’t heard since
but dream about; one for that song, too,
and for the day you lost her,
the day you knew you’d lost her, not the day
you tried. And one for every continent,
then one for our countries, cities, and so forth
until our assemblies are down to only cells;
a poem for every atom
that creates you, and you.
What else can we throw around,
into comets, traverse the distance between Orion’s torso
and the reach of his sword.
We’ll build a bridge to it, chutes and ladders,
mark our slow way with tea lights,
send emails home to family
about our progress, ask, do you see it yet? say,
we’ll be over Missouri in about a week,
keep a steady pace but not quick,
no, we want the building to last forever, or close,
this escape route to nothing in particular, while we wait
for all the poems to be written
about this
we are waiting for nothing in particular.