The Tourist
They say you can’t go home again,
and I’ve always agreed.
Time is flour
sifting through us,
not string.
So I sat in my car
outside all seven houses,
unable to open my door.
All at once experiencing the future
of my past.
My car a quietly swirling
snow globe from a trip
I will never leave.
Wistfully began
the repeated,
and steady
breaking of my heart,
like glasses tipped
off the shelf
one by one
onto the kitchen floor.
House after house,
block after block,
I was the sieve, trying to make wheat
from the dust.
I was a tourist to my own life,
walking through the museums
and graveyards of time
amidst the eddy of snow.