Curtains

Houses war to keep
what happens in them
from suck and blanch
of time. This much I know,
but what’s the meaning
of my homeyness in them,
places I couldn’t have been,
lives I couldn’t have lived?
Torn curtains blowing
from blasted houses stop
my breath and remind me
of what I couldn’t have felt
or thought or done.

Djelloul Marbrook
“Curtains” is from Far from Algiers (Kent State University Press, 2008).
Audio file of this poem is courtesy of Djelloul Marbrook and The Kent State University Press, from a CD of Marbrook reading the poems from his collection Far from Algiers.