Skidaway Island (Where I Lived)

I recorded this poem while down in Savannah about a month ago. It was the first visit I'd given it in a year and a half and, while many things hadn't changes, some things had. And so, because I didn't have a pen and pencil, I recorded myself saying stuff that was sort of like poetry and then later on wrote it out and revised it a lot. This is the product; hope you enjoy it.

Skidaway Island

Where I lived they are building

a bridge over the old drawbridge,

above the migrant bird wires connecting

my island: that place removed

from the flat land by a thin strip

of water, scaffolded by fake beaches.

They are building black traffic

lights, stop signs, curved

roads to avoid the roads they made

useless. There are stone gates around

the rusted gates with spike tips

and orange plastic preventing entrance.

A man on the bridge is standing

on the tallest beam, commanding all

below, each rafter, each sweaty workers.

His hardhat shining a cautious yellow,

he directs the flow of cars like the tide

from where he reigns and I must follow.

But I do not live here anymore and I am not

building. Let him build my home,

which now stands occupied by white

walls, a carpet, fresh and dead,

without the grape stains I pressed once

while stomping up and down stairs.

He could cut out the backyard and make it

into chairs, a new family table, without

dents, or initials carved into the legs.

I wish he would build a new home: the sinew

from the raised foundation, the heart chambers

from the ruins unable to outlive me.