I drive along the interstate to my hometown and pass
the houses that were
the houses of my friends
and enemies.
I order food from the place where I used to work;
the kids who work there now just don’t do the same job we did.
I think about when I was that kid:
standing in the window as the people of the town
waited for their fries.
Oh, the people I knew,
the people
I saw,
The people—memories peeping in,
from a world where I lived
I am still so close, all of the time,
practically next door and
thousands of miles away.
I come home to some new place that feels old,
driving east on the desolate street—
just last week crowded at this time of night
with students stumbling slurring home to sleep it off.
Orion rises on the horizon,
waves to let me know it’s his season, once again.