Unwriter

This poem is from many years ago, when I was trying to get back into writing poetry. I couldn't seem to get the hang of it again, and I missed it so much.

Picture from our old kitchen window. Poem first posted here.

She felt herself an exile from the old starry kingdom.
 -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

I am homesick for somewhere that isn't a place—
not a country, not a house, not a street striped with leaves.
The writing, the scribbling, the notebooks, the drafts—
all with tiny changes that only I could see.

The verses, the pages, the perfect percolation 
of alliteration and rhyme, or slant-rhyme
or the rhythm I could hear reading to myself
even if no one else could. 

The thoughts put into lines to unwind. 
The words that no one said in italics:
the slant and fragile script of the heart. The poem.

Every time I reach for a word, I stumble.
The time I spent writing, writing, writing
for years and years and years—
erased. Deleted. Torn up and thrown away. 
Burned. Blacked out.
I sift through files, verses falling through my fingers
and wonder: Whose words are these?

Not mine. Not the woman with the children,
the woman with the wrinkle between her eyes.
Not the woman wearing the stereotypes of motherhood:
soft clothing, stained clothing, missing a waist.
The old poems dust my clothes, and I brush them off.
I have dishes to wash.

But I know—I know—I know—
this isn't the end of the poem—
in spite of the lovely slant swash
of brush and off and wash. This isn't the end for me.

Home is here, down the hall, up the stairs
in unmade beds. Dirty dishes and books. Babies with snarled hair.
There are words here to arrange, following more words
lines marching one by one
like the ants my children love.