Fieldwork in social distancing

Broken yet repaired - 20 april 2020

This home and I are collapsing

into each other, in fear,

I’m giving birth to its knotted body

it bellows. A flare of being in each shout

there is an anxious kick of life in the expanding flesh

their bodies attached to mine;

checking the corners for leaks - I got new angles

looking under the bed for lost socks -

I became shelter - examining the faucets, the stove - 

the fears moved my house inside

enclosing it into my sight, my ears;

And only so we are now walking

away, doors and plumbing

surviving entangled

in mold and upon rust 

smells of fries and curved pipes

 

These embodied lines keep me in place

fear as glue and spark inside my slanting body

I’ve been dreaming of hills - vineyards and strawberries

a couple of dogs upon a scorched courtyard

meandering up and down someone’s eyeball

I am to leave - strawberries dry out

to move my fears somewhere else

 

But breaking the entangled

apart will hurt. The house will soon be stiff

– forsaken – a pile of objects arranged

again by room name

pulled from my brown eyes

still warm with fear

Crystal Palace, London. August 2019. Source: Olimpia Mosteanu

Crystal Palace, London. August 2019. Source: Olimpia Mosteanu

Olimpia Mosteanu