Who I am in Pasadena

library, video store, butterfly bakery

with treats I can afford

mommy used to drive her

thunderbird to medical school

in Pasadena

the same streets

wide and clean is where

I gush my heart,

my gasoline

mommy probably cried once or twice,

freaked out by marriage. I cry in the

library freaked out by me. I like

thinking about us in the front seats

of blue cars about thirty years apart

pick up my heavy feet to the bank,

to the tiki-themed grocery store,

everyone and their mother is here

the pain of being alone and never alone

the joy of being alone and never alone

the dreams of me sleeping sixteen deep in cheap

motels eating turtle meat on seaside mornings

I never felt all these ghosts until I thought about it