At some cost
I achieved some detachment.
Finding this distance
here in myself
I first had to cross.
Say I got out of the traffic.
I was no longer even curious.
I said bravely no more bullshit.
Nor do the years I marched
in my bright brass buttons
behind the wrong flag.
We’re each one of us
separate countries I think,
tricky and wary as states.
And the language fools us,
each in the yammering skull
with our messages fading at the border.
I’ve no complaint in the silence.
I’m alone at last with the stars.
I’m connected by voices and footprints.
I’ve one eye on the distant foothills.
My news is as ever:
it will not be the last of me.