CALL ME BELOVED

Revisiting poems, like pressing a bruise –
thought I’d only ever see two decades,
now I’m left with photographs, time capsules

when I don’t need to go back.
Hindsight is full of salt pillars,
bodies in need of burial –

the wrong kind of weight – what
I’m looking for is the pile of coats
you’d hide underneath as a kid

nighttime during parent’s parties, heavy
and warm. Secret and alone, but safe;
quiet, muffled voices just past the door.