Who are these people
on the walls of Cracker Barrel
and their shameless relatives
who pass their portraits on?
Remember those fashion runways where they put
angel wings on beautiful women?
Like underwear does that to you.
I used to be a tall tree
just begging for lightning
but denying it.
I wrote to my trusted
friend who
kept all my letters—from my twenties.
Back then I was like a raccoon
wandering into a washing machine.
I shouldn’t have expected a resurrection.
My brother had raccoons.
They climbed on our shoulders,
dropped into our laps.
Everyone said those can claw your face right off.
I realize now: his dogs must have taken the mother out.
Those letters from my twenties—so lonely,
even though I tried to survive like an alligator,
legs paddling down below,
nothing visible floating atop the water
except for the eyes.
Don’t tell me the alligator’s not proud?
I must have been proud, without surveillance.
Reading these letters now, I know
I wasn’t sneaking up on anybody but myself.
I survived, but still I want to keep shouting:
Get out, get out!
How did I ever thrash my way beyond the pond?
By loneliness? Anchorite.
A word you don’t hear so much anymore.
Everybody’s a hermit now,
but one who can’t be left alone.