Home has always escaped me. Walls chipping,
white as bones. A winding river, a bare apartment.

A river winding bares cracks in my skull.
I hope they reveal a mural beneath my naked walls.

I wish to become a mural, not a wall, naked,
my body seen only by doctors when it fails me.

I cannot doctor what has failed me. I’m a picture
of straying away from God, his distant beauty.

Straying away from God, my only beauty,
my hands are in the dirt, digging for a family.

My hands in the ground—my dirt family,
is there any peace before I return to you?

Before I return to you, let my hands be full of empty,
the river full of wine. Don’t let home always escape me.