Dents

These dents

are old childhood memories,

slams from my head,

punches from my fist,

and stains of every time

I hated the world

preserved on a single wall

covered in dents and paint chips:

all that remains untouched

in the room where I grew up,

which feels so far away now

that I can’t remember if this

specific dent is from my own hand,

filled with rage,

or if it’s from the hammer

in the hand of the workman

as he built this very wall

one hundred and twenty-two years before,

when this house was in a town

untouched by the wars,

and all of the troubles

had yet to be troubled,

when every dent, in every wall

in every moment of my childhood

was just a flat wall,

and the head and the fists that made them

were the grandson of my grandfather’s

grandfather’s father

and his lovely-eyed wife

and their own dented walls.