Going
There is a city in my dreams,
the same city of granite streets and shops,
and high above it, like Mt. Royal or Firenze,
an ancient mountain overlooks, enshadowing.
I must climb up to it, the rough tangles
of wooden undergrowth impeding till I seem
further from the pine timbres the rusty-needled florest floor.
But then there, interminable tree trunks, quiet, dark,
until the clearing and the house
I do not know that it is mine:
untidy, left in a hurry, cabinets open,
closets half empty, dust swept into piles, then kicked aside.
No one is home, but I must go upstairs
to find the furthest door and scrape it open
to find the smallest room where,
left behind, a small child sits beside a doll house,
moving dolls through their imaginary lives.
She has been waiting long and asks me with her eyes,
“Where did you go?”
What did you do?
Who have you now become?
