Even before I could remember

how it was

long ago, in my childhood

the memory of being

            close to sleep and feeling

                        locked inside myself, singular, alone,

            overwhelmed me.

Like stepping into a river of stars

and being singed.

Yesterday I walked inside my shadow.

In a parking lot, a narrow isthmus of raised concrete

                        and at its rim,

silvery tufts of grass.

Here and there, in cracks,

the trusting perfection

of fleabane

in miniature, the gold-rayed

flowerheads small, like children,

branched.

I felt the world taking place

remotely, outside of me,

at a distance.

It was after sunset, under cloud.

Being pregnant, among people

who were by themselves

made me feel hopelessly apart.

Streetlights

loomed above us.

I felt how I was blown about.

Sometimes out of myself,