What self-absorbed patterns are there on this wall:

a convergence of voices texturing generations

born through and beyond war, this baby boomer’s legacy

passing up plaster, wiring, pipes,

to live on the threshold of a division between parts.

 

Step through some gauzy strip. Its flesh is a stretch of hours,

years, all army brat surplus breathing these homes into being,

though only sojourned, never owned.

 

In Europe so many were ruined, the facades suddenly stage-flats

collapsing with one lamp or painting dangling here and there like an eye.

 

How to secure mere boards, beams and pegs?

How to put a latch on the wind when change sweeps through, dispossessing?

 

Can it be canned, preserved, pickled:

Eternity in a mason jar, a whole summer’s ripeness?

Our clothes, moth ball packed, store gestures

like limbs. Our faces retain photos age-wrapped as wallets.

 

But, in the end, every museum moves out

through the hurricane contained in a classical pianist’s hands.

So, listening to such genius, I bail out images

and press my head to this wallpaper.