Thank you for appearing in the form of a careworn woman
shuffling across the Safeway parking lot
in winter rain,
through the afterbirth of Christmas,
wet garbage and lost seagulls
picking through the dirty snow, a place that's nowhere at all.
I who was barely able
to get out of bed this morning
and meet another day saw your face like a crumpled map
on the seat of the thousand-dollar
Skylark I once owned,
and it said I’ll eat these Twinkies before I even reach my car,
and it's okay, this my station,
one of my many stations. I remember what you showed me:
the long way home is home.