1948, DES MOINES

After the last scene with my father, I quit

His country house and, flailing through cornfields,

That August, to Merle Hay Road, hitched

A truckride six blocks from grandmother's house

At 2929 56th Street between Hickman Avenue and Urbandale.

Up the shale-strewn drive, my footfalls waked

A neighbor who sang out "Who's there?", and I

Said, "I have walked all night to sleep

In my dead grandmother's house," and forced

The hook-and-eye latch on the screened-porch

Backdoor, sprawled on the WELCOME mat, and blind

Drunk, dreamt back my grandmother room by room.