We Build Our Home from the Inside Out

By Nadine Ellsworth-Moran

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I can sense you opening closets and cupboards,
wandering forgotten hallways, testing

doorknobs. Your fingertips graze my walls, read
my Anaglypta like braille, memorize the shape

of words, the words that shape me, your hands
deftly pocket trinkets, break off pieces of memory,

gather my idiosyncrasies, my gaze, whatever glitters,
beguiles, haunts, along the way until your coat is weighted

with so much of me— We carry one another
in this way, neither complete for what the other

has taken, or been given, each piece tender
wrapped, nestled in ribshelves, a safe space

near the hearth of our bodies where we keep warm,
we flicker, embers banked for colder days, farther

days, days when we cannot stay tucked inside
ourselves in whispering conversation.

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Nadine Ellsworth-Moran lives in Georgia where she serves full time in ministry. She has a passion for writing and is fascinated by the stories of the modern South unfolding all around her as she seeks to bring everyone into conversation at a common table. Her essays and poems have appeared in Rust+Moth, Calla Press, Theophron, Interpretation, Ekstasis, Thimble, The Windhover and Kakalak, among others.  She shares her home with her husband and four unrepentant cats. 

Nadine's other work on Foreshadow:
Eve, within (Poetry, November 2024)