The Country No Map Has Named

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There is a country

no map has ever named.

I have lived there

my whole life.

The body is a house

someone else furnished.

I moved through its rooms

touching nothing.

Outside, medals

for performances

I do not remember giving.

Inside,

a child pressed her ear

against the wall

listening for a world

that sounded like her name.

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She learned early

that love has

terms and conditions.

Decades passed

the way water moves

through a closed fist.

Something always lost.

What falls when everything falls

is not nothing.

It is the thing

that was always there.

Small.

Certain.

Waiting.

She is here now.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Fearfully.

Here.