The Place

The place where I was raised does not exist
anymore, or it has changed through rough weather,
through earthquakes and violent sandstorms,

to be what it always was, another place, the Other
of landscapes, changed from the day I left.
There are still trees that pretend to know the difference

and the creek still dribbles through the backyards,
but the people there are from another planet,
another time, they have faces without expressions,

unlike those I remember when I was young,
the faces, each one, that would salute me openly
as a child. Now this place is full of adults,

and I am the worst one. Now that secret warmth
of the day, the grass grown just a little too long,
the sleepy avenue that no one ever drove,

now it’s only the memory of another place
where nothing ever went wrong, nothing was ever
out of place, the days were secretly the same.

The world grew no more than a few feet tall,
and ended at the forest edge, where there was a trail
that everyone said went no place.