Dreams of the Dispossessed

Dmytro Plaksin, who gave private music lessons around Mariupol, still has the key to the dressing room that he called home before the bombing.
—The New York Times Magazine, 4/9/22

found in a cupboard—
a jumble of keys in a jar

tiny metallic sharks, jaws open
with nothing to bite into

each conjures up images
of cars we once drove
houses we lived in
keys to past lives
a bundle of love letters
we locked in a drawer
the spare key to our mother’s house
kept long after she died

the rub of a key in our hand
security                    stability
home                        each piece of wood
framing the door is blessed
walls and roof intact, floors swept
clean linens on the bed and table
porcelain and glass unbroken
every room holding the sound
of our voices until we return

a home vivid in the dreams of the dispossessed
huddled on a sliver of dry land or
crouched in a trench, they remember
the bed they once slept in,
limbs sinking into its familiar depths

the bed, a smooth white lake
inviting them to stay

Photo by Andrii Leonov on Unsplash.