I post this home poem in response to Mara Eastman’s first Poetry 101 Rehab challenge http://maraeastern.com/2015/04/06/poetry-101-rehab-home/ . Any feedback is, as always, most welcome.

 

Hymn to Home

 

Home-

ward

bound

on a trip

to ward off

ghosts of guests

and guard memories.

*

Home is focus, fetus & fire

heat & hearth

core of a world

where wary eyes await

and weary limbs

are laid

to rest

& the rest

is not history

just another sorry story

just another sore spot

*

your place was always

before the fire

& mine was in the clouds

*

Home is wherever

you go

at the end of the day

where the hat you keep

so many secrets under

is laid.

Boots by the bed.

*

Home is a hospital

ward,

a spare bed in a crypt.

*

Home is a snare,

a needle in

the amygdala

*

The plug-hole squeals

like a pig led to slaughter

as the deep bathwater,

murky with the filth of the whole family

–in which children might drown—

is sucked underground.

The fire is the focus,

but the plughole

is the secret meaning

of the home.

*

The bathroom is itself a sort of home,

with its plughole & its mirror

& a place for cleansing

& a window frosted against

the world

*

And, when heavy rain roars in the gutters,

racing earthwards,

or loiters moodily around blocked drains,

I remember

your hair and used cooking oil

clogging the plughole;

and, from afar,

am egged,

like a compass needle,

ever so gently, ever so slightly,

northwards

and home.