Where I’m From

or

Where I’m From

I come from kitchen acoustics and carbon paper
like dried poinsettia leafs on morning’s porch

From caffeine sprees and the elasticity
of hunger pains after dark, knocking heartbeats
against each other to keep the pace of creative refills

I’m from rings of fire and some of those Folsom Blues
and guttural guitar strings made from phosphor bronze

I’m from latch key and fever baths
Dutch furniture and pine
Baby boomers equipped in blue collar booze
and chewing tobacco
and listening to the future’s soundtrack
of cover bands refurbishing classic songs

Could be I’m from other people’s problems
her criminal maternity
and abandoned baby syndrome
His pigskin and self-pity
his illegitimate broken nervous system

I could come from outlaw language
From taboos hidden by time

In a perfect lie, I’d know all my history
from color theory to charcoal dustings
in a sketch of Seoul in the morning calm

At least I’m from nowhere else on purpose

From Swedish korv and sunflowers in the dining room
depressed coin toss of football fields and foster care
my own slow pen in illegible scribbles
time signatures on old French sheet music

I come from nowhere better
because memory is meat cleaved off the bone
like ridges ripped from a skeleton key
arms off a clock, without time