days spent under the bed

chickpeas, hiding under the bed
on rainy days, i think of chickpeas
and the sugared almonds she
used to keep in a contoured glass
bowl in the room of family portraits.
there are no easy ways out of here,
i must lay perfectly still, not fill my chest
too full of air, the metal springs only slightly
too close to my nose, the shoeboxes next
to me only slightly too full of buried things.
something about rainy days, buried things
and daydreams about food i never particularly
liked reminds me that the blackberry bushes
near rock pond soon will be freckled with
plump berries and thorns that snag the threads of my
sweater--the berries reach full capacity juice-wise
before the sun reaches sink-through-the-epidermis
to-heat-up-the-nerves-underneath strength. i hear slow
picking of tight mandolin strings under the
pelting rain. this house of moving parts in the
darkness of an overcast sky slips silently, loud only
through the consistency of noise.
here we fear acceleration, the intersection of breath
sped up and smile slowed down. three fingers
reach carefully towards my check,
where they bend and the top knuckle of each finger
strokes the tiny hairs of my cheek bone. i close
my eyes and it's only chickpeas and pelts of rain
and tiny upturned hairs, lullabies after i'm already
asleep, the tilling of wet april mulch--i wait patiently
from under these twisty metal bars and fragmented
daydreams for the rain to stop,
for the swallow to break the echoing of this silence.

DLS