1.
I know I am home when everything is painted an industrial aqua blue
like we rose up from submersion and with the first breath plotted
highways and overpasses—God’s hefty arteries. When the blue hits me
I know I can relax, put my left foot up on the seat, for it’s only thirty-five
minutes till I reach the bridge, which is essentially twenty-five, which
may as well be fifteen. The veins keep going—
the Newport Creamery my sisters and I ran away to one summer, heartbroken about
something other than the reason we gave
the movie theater where I learned how to kiss and that I didn’t like doing it with boys
the time dad let us lay down in the village street and make snowangels until the plows came
the lighthouse parking lot where I learned to drive, and later, how to stay still.

2.
This time, when I come home, these facts will all be the same.
Even the shores that have receded have just curled further into us.
This time I’ll remember that we build a home’s borders with love,
which is only as strong as flesh. This time I’ll want to trade love
for bulletproof glass. I’ll want my nieces to put gauze in their backpacks.
I’ll want to pick my home up, this state that I love,
and move it to a country just like ours, but
with greater reverence for the music
of beating hearts than of guns.