It’s almost lonely
with the rain drenching all the land
around my house, leaving me
at sea. I am autonomous,
choosing just when to eat my doughnuts
and when to daydream about
romantic things. I can climb the stairs
or I can crawl if I want to.
feeling like a panther easing my way
through jungle brush.
The rain and the stairs make me feel
I am floating, perhaps to discover
some place not yet named.
There is peace in this moment,
between steps, raindrops, and romance,
all of them forming a humming line
on the border of where I want to be.

Just there
in the quietest part of the day,
the night really,
my heart is pounding
and I worry I will wake something
that should sleep a little longer.

There’s no map
for the moonless night
so I keep bumping into things
and I wonder if I’ll be able to keep up
laughing off the bruises in the morning
or if I’ll learn to stay still.

It seems too early for snoring
in the afternoon,
but I hear it, along with a thrumming
hotel air conditioner and traffic
careening this way and that nearby.
I loved what I could see through my window
on the drive but we never stop
except at the doughnut shop to pee.
I’m going to miss that stretch of road.
The ebullient signs excite me
though not to buy anything but to think
how large a world there is
beyond the three regular roads I travel.

One road is necessity.
Another road is obligation.
The third is for the spirit.
Anything behind that is for fun,
and I wish we’d take that route more often.

It’s too early to be thinking about supper
but the quiet makes me more aware
of my stomach and there is somehow
a mounting excitement about eating
in another town, even when it ends up
being the same food as at home.

It’s too middle-of-the-road to be
having a midlife crisis
and maybe I’m way past halfway
but I am hungrier than I should be,
I’m not at all tired of new places,
and the third road is calling me
like a carnival barker at sundown.

I’m 15, watching “Swing Time,” wondering if anything could ever be as smooth
as the dancing of Fred and Ginger
and dialog of 1930’s writers.
Perhaps Chaplin before talkies.
I imagine riffing like Rosalind Russell
but I’m nobody’s Girl Friday.
I glare like Bacall and ache like Cary Grant
without discernable roots.
The ‘40s and ‘50s flew by
but not without leaving marks.
I’m 51 and my marks are showing in ways
I had not anticipated.
I don’t know how long I can hold on
before I lose it like Brando
or become cynical like Bogart.
The treasure of finding slivers of light
between noir blinds
is like finding new love when you’re looking
for a good book; it’s all a beautiful surprise.
I will never be as cool as Grace Kelly
or as wanted as Marilyn
and I don’t seem to have a sense of right
like Cooper or Stewart.
Who would I have been then?
Bette Davis or Rita Hayworth, or maybe
Ingrid Bergman with plenty of smarts
but questionable choices.
I’d probably be a contract player, a
character actor, a dancer in the chorus line.
God knows I’m not enough of a looker
to be a lead or enough of a writer
to figure out what comes next.

The sun held sway at lunch.
A cool breeze pushed aside warm air.
It was almost perfect.
There was a deep rumbling hum.
I thought maybe there was roadwork nearby
but it seems after searching
for the disturbance, it was coming from
inside, where I had a lingering pang,
a weird dark space where sounds of the day
were lost to echoes of imagined promise.
I ignored the passing flutter of birdsong
for the voice I hear in my dreams,
the one that shamelessly declares
things most people scoff at:
love and passion and ardent assertions
that all will be well.