I Fly

It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving

that I became homeless

The day before I sold everything¾

saucepots and mattresses,

books and lawnmowers.

Collected antiques walked out,

carried by new hands.

The sewing machine left with the potted palm, 

the dressers with the shower curtain.

Evening time I sat on a bare wood floor

making games with echoes.

It was already not my house.

Before another Indiana sunrise

Kentucky knew my name.

Never claimed by sorrow,

and roads south pulled hard.

Folks in Georgia called me ma’am.

Scrub palm and big sky,

I took bridges over water

and entered Lee County.

The road swallowed

what I spit out,

like the tag sale

where I’d sold pillow and quilt

I was less now, but I could fly