I’m in another country, say the maps,
history, or some other detail—
unfamiliar faces, laughter laughing
in a foreign accent.

It’s true this city
couldn’t be my own.

But if I stick a shovel in the ground,
the ground, dampened by winter
splits open as it does back there, and the worm
writhes stateless, in love with life.

And the very same flies also alight
on piles of garbage.

And the reed beds and the cold
speak a language I understand.