every incoming call is to talk
about the things I’ve done
steaming in the waiting
room     wet with ruin
trying so hard to get home
the handle fell off my mother’s door
her profession
is drinking     call it a family
business   say something
of autumn and winter-flowering
walks beside the motorway
staved in the valley’s gut     a tinnitus
of rain tapping
the canopy     do you still pray
with open hands     faith
an inflorescence too bloom
to deadhead
with the mulch of us walled up