Melissa Diem

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Leaving Home

After I told you I’d never see you again you ripped the mobile home

apart     certain and dexterous and everything in it because

I had lived there     for three slow months one summer returning

from Florida     resource-less and spinning.     And it all came apart so easily

bare hands, claw-hammer, and energy,     dismantled doors and windows went first,

then the fittings and fixtures flew after the furniture and the wall-to-wall shelving

that stowed all my clothes from the black blossoming moulds as they bled against discipline.

The walls, the floor and the roof peeled open     stunningly     like a burn in our vision.

Everyone watched, stupefied and dazed,      my insides cast out over the lawn

disseminating     before you gathered it all back to the centre     and set it alight.

Spectators were horrified     at the strength of the flames that flared over the hedges

in a spectacular show of anger     and all for me!

I smiled – it would have been worse

if you’d done nothing.

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 Written as part of my Masters portfolio 2009 and published by The Poetry Bus in early October 2013

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