you can travel too--

my mother says because that's 
what mothers are supposed to
say to their children who
tell them there is so 
much to see between
the corners of their room--
i google mapped to see
how far away you are &
it tells me there's no walking
directions from pennsylvania 
to berlin-- it makes
you take a plane but i think
google maps has little belief
in the will of humans to
walk across water for their
brothers--
it tells me if i were to
take a plane from the philadelphia
airport this afternoon
i could be there outside
your door in ten hours &
ten minutes-- 
don't ask me where the ten minutes 
came from-- i'm assuming it
is acknowledging my tendency to 
get distracted on street corners--
maybe it knows i stare too 
long out airport windows--
maybe it's guessing i'll get lost
in berlin without a knowledge of
their language beyond being
able to count to 7--
it's not that i don't want to
walk across an ocean--
i do-- 
it's just that i feel
like i'm too big to travel 
that far-- i'm 
already filling up this room 
so much with the sound of my
fingers across my laptop--
this is keyboards turning 
into rain--
this is another night when
the moon tries to 
come in through the window--
i tell her she's too big
& i'm too big & there's not 
enough space to store anymore
planets in here--
but moons are impatient & she
finds her way in by breaking 
the window from & tossing the
shutters to the side like 
stiff eyelids--
i have a habit of letting 
her do this-- so i stay away
with her until she falls asleep again--
she tosses & turns until she's
warm in a black of star & 
darkness-- i'm not sure
anymore if the night sky is the
ocean between  us or
the sky that i would walk on
to visit you--
i am a tourist of my
own bed room where
i talk the moon
into going home-- 
i'm a nomad down
the same sidewalk-- i watch 
june draw the night
around us like a lid over
a pot of tomato soup-- our mother
is making on the stove-- & the 
house always smells like the spice
cabinet crashed in through the window--
i'm a pilgrim on the front 
porch-- & there's a home somewhere
that we come back to but it's not
a place--
it might be where the moon
finds us or it could 
be anywhere we travel to--
i am the door knob sightseer--
i am the ten minutes on
a street corner in one of our two cities--
i am feet on an ocean &
the persistent belief
in my own ability to 
fill up an entire room
before the moon comes crashing in