Just because I can now trap a spider

between cup and paper and set it free

doesn’t mean I’m no longer afraid.

Just because I sometimes believe

in the divine doesn’t mean I don’t see 

emptiness every time I close my eyes.

The man down the street

has made a home out of things

I’ve thrown out:
used retail bags, duck-taped and stretched, 

keep the rain at bay, old clothes

insulate his walls and my empty wine bottles

make wind chimes that echo through the night.
I call him homeless

but the only difference between us

is his walls aren’t built to code.
Just because I can spin a seductive line

or two doesn’t mean I know

how to talk to love. 
I can chatter all day,

but what do I say when love

stands naked in front of me
all hardness and need?

What combination of letters

could say anything other than
Thank You?
The man I call homeless,

he talks to love. I hear him
 
when I walk to the bus stop in the mornings.
Sometimes they argue,

but mostly I hear him cooing to love,

wrapping love in my discarded wool sweater.
Jamaica Baldwin is our Poet in Residence for March. Previously: "Father/less", and "Vigilant".