The Orphanage

                Out from beneath

the orphanage of my dreaming

                                                I wander

the streets, a stranger to my own

slowness. All the neighborhood

cats reel in

                their shadows, staring

at my stalking past. At some moment

or other, I notice

I am walking beneath

                         ladders, Dad’s voice on the phone, the sun

                         draining, the men’s golf balls turned on

like Christmas lights, unfastening

                                     the dark. I do

stupid shit all the time. Don

two sweatshirts down farm roads in the heat, undo

as much of myself as I can, let

somebody not myself take up all

                         my headspace, my foot falling

in love

                  again again again

with the dirt. The hair that tends to

                                                my face catches

                         the rain of me

like fish in netting. I give nothing so

freely anymore. Keeping

                                    on, only still, can I be

sole, losing, loosening, diminishing the

only one of myself. I am

                                                      not mystic, not time-

less. I confuse the word for what to

where. Refuse to fall

again, Loneliness, I keep you as evidence

                                                of myself, you are

always with me.