The memory
of our earliest home

is never relinquished,
and lies awake

in the body.
In the vibrant colors

of my dreams,
I kept passing

from the garden’s
lit perimeter—

the embrace
of its enclosures,

its calm geometry
and indelible greens—

into aridity: a world
of grasping roots

and solitary trees
piercing the soil

where no water stirred.
And because I dreamed

each night of my return
to that first home

but woke each dawn
to exile—

I was banished not
once but repeatedly.

Thus the cruelty
of the garden:

its refusal to die.