if there is one thing I know
it’s this storm how rain sloshed over
my bedroom floor boards ants swam to the island
of my black sandal onto a gray towel I brought from the Home
I had to haul out everything in two days
that was the rule they said & today I read how an amoeba
from a warm river attached to his tiny brain he died too my god
this morning everyone is asleep & I wonder how much of my life
is held inside these legs always skinny the boy whose arm
was around my shoulder told me more than twice & yes for a while I broke
& still these legs found their way to the well -lit bridge the Danube
the white blouse with blue swans across a boulevard
to the black Paris hat so ordinary no matter how much I tugged
the entire world was velvet except for the wooden house in Poland
where two women feared I had come back in brown dresses their hair wrapped
in buns they wanted me to leave wanted me out of their town I wasn’t taking
anything I told them & Agneska told them & thank goodness
I knew to knock on the manager’s door at the London guest house
though after midnight she offered tea of course in her blue robe
& I had been crying
she said I could not tell not done she would be fired it was strong
dark & perfect & these legs spindles for straw into gold
found their way home to my window where beyond yellow
curtains with burgundy leaves the storm split
my maple in two my country split
& upstairs neon pink stripes & dream above your bed
your mouth your breathing the wind
as though the world is ending and I know it is not
Amy Small-McKinney is the 2011-2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate and founder of the program, Finding Our Voices, Poetry and Resilience. She is a twice nominated Pushcart Prize nominee. She has published two chapbooks of poetry, Body of Surrender, and Clear Moon, Frost, both with Finishing Line Press. Recently, she completed a full-length book of poems, Life Is Perfect, as well as a new chapbook, I Don’t Want To Disappear.