Twelve months before,
and for seventeen years before that,

I dreamt of traveling south.
By plane or ship , it did not matter.

I lived to leave the days without light
and animals below dead grass,

skin like desiccated bone.
And the naked trees

still did not seem as bare as I-
and then I could be happy.

Half a year ago I packed my car and headed south
where the ground was always blue or green

and never white and never brown;
where you could smoke and swim outside

and the trees wore colors all year.
Here was beautiful but it didn’t mean a thing.

Two months ago I packed my car and headed north
and everything looked different now.

And once life begins to bloom
and sunshine stencils through my bedroom window

and lace dresses crawl finally from drawer to skin
I will not have minded the wait