Raw Goods

Cordelia in Camp

That's the trouble with condemned houses:
someone always has to say the word

"condemned"

to declare a residence, an office, a workshop
to decree it as unfit for human occupation.

(curtailed)

You've never told me you loved me.
You never will, will you? It's a word

(cordoned)

unfit for human occupation, for the activities
of our lives spill beyond a word, a structure

(contained)

centuries-old bricks, cracked cement foundations
where hundreds to gather monthly to discuss

(constrained)

what makes us who we are? how do we change
what we've become? is it possible? Is love

conveyed

in a stone-walled church with shattered
windows that open to rotted floors and rafters?

Is one word ever enough?

You'll never say it, so how do we
occupy the space it was once designed to hold -

habitate the splintered barns between
crumpled staircases - keep each other warm

under the dock that has collapsed
in bay winds that can never enunciate

the words:

"condemned"
"i love."

posted by judy j @ 8:54 PM