your underworld 

there are geese in your underworld.
i bring a shovel. you explained that
you need another room. a place to store
a hunger without any legs yet.
in the sky there are war planes. in the mailbox
a war face & a letter from a man trying
to sell us another underworld.
it is enough tending our own. the portals
waiting in the bath. i prefer your underworld
to mine. yours is almost velvet. like
a sock turned inside out. instead, mine is 
prickly. woolen. i reminds me of my mother's
old jacket that i would put on to walk
outside in the winter dark. isn't that how
it always is? you crave anything but 
your own lungs. i see the geese. i feed them
& you scold me. you explain you have
been trying to get rid of the geese for years
but they always find their way back.
i can sympathize. my underworld has 
bugs on every wall. centipedes & jupiter beetles.
i used to try to smash them but that just
brought more. each fracture the seed-making.
one bug into two into four. once i thought
i could stay in the underworld. i started 
to bring magazines & peanut butter crackers.
i think i was in middle school. i curled up there
& wept. the walls widened. i shrunk. 
my sibling snuck in there. they were astounded
by the colors in my underworld. they explained,
"mine is all grey." we sat together, unsure
of what to say to each other. i felt better though
that they could feel it too. the cool 
of a root cellar. i even sometimes visit your underworld
when you are not there. that is my favorite.
i try not to touch much of anything. 
i find video rooms & plow rooms & dog rooms. 
some doors shut & locked. when i emerge 
i try to go outside but the heat makes 
a hot plate of the street. my fried egg face. 
i picture all the underworlds sewn together. 
i used to think i could reach my father's if i
dug in my own enough. i never did. instead,
i made new rooms to hold each absence.
the doors, refuse to become geese for me.
i bring sugar to feed to bugs.