[The] Japanese kanji “Chinese character” 間 graphically combines 門 “door” and 日 “sun.” The earlier variant character 閒 was written with 月 “moon” rather than “sun”, depicting “A 門 door through the crevice of which the 月 moonshine peeps in.” ~ Wikipedia quote of Bernhard Karlgren, Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese, Paul Geunthner, 1923
What am I heartsick for
that every shape
forms into a well?
*
The healer sealed my hand
in a fiber of warmth and all
I could think of was roots.
*
Everything I eke out
seems always like
beginning.
*
Every walk traces
a first running away,
bridges of salt burning.
*
Mother, do you remember
threatening to return me
to the womb?
*
At night I drink chamomile tea
and build houses on the table
with sugar cubes.
*
I have turned into
a Listening post: my ear,
filled with a residue of moths.
*
My pillow at night
records the sounds I don’t
hear my breathing make.