as i tread lightly amid the raindrops,
with the precision of my nine-year-old self,
stepping across the sidewalk's chessboard squares,
the lock of hair you twisted now recalls
a little less of your caress.

no one cares,
no one dares to tell me
why this meat keeps drifting this way
when it knows
that home is already right under its nose,
beneath its limbs,

between your gaze and the drops that pierce through soil.