Spring begins
And the sky is dirty with rainclouds
And still no rain.
I'm chilled to my fingernails.
But that's not the trouble.
I don't know what it is--
The discarded fragments of uppers and soles on the floor,
And the painted concrete floor,
The walls of yellowed plaster,
The cracks that cross them,
All of the snagging sewing machines,
And other people, especially other people.
I wander the market at lunchtime and hear the haggling
Among the vendors--peanuts, cabbage, rice,
Candy, eggs,
Tangerines wrapped in red paper....
Tangerines:
They can console me briefly for my life,
The way the rind puckers apart from the stringy sections,
The sweet taste and color,
The seeds that slip so easily on the tongue,
The crinkling paper....
Oh, I want to be somewhere else--anywhere, anywhere,--
That's what it comes to.
Home. Where is that?