I can’t say.
Here, where I am now,
you see me, and I see you,
but no one sees
where I am from. I cannot see
myself here. I am not myself
here.

Who then, how then,
why, then, am I here?

Do you see the homeless man,
his hands shaking,
panhandling for change?
See him.
See that he and I
come from the same place.

Do you see the nameless wild-eyed cat
perched or trapped on the window sill,
certainly not in, and not quite out?
See her.
See that she and I
come from the same place.

I am not from here,
but I am here
to see
the man without a home,
to be
the cat without a name.

I come from the unknown
or from nowhere, or from somewhere
I’ll never know,
and I leave here as a great fool leaves,
I leave here like leaves of sage,
lit on fire to leave a circle
open, broken, only able to ache
its way whole.

I come from where I pass through
tomorrow,
where my lips pass from speech
to rapture.
Yesterday I walked like a camel.
Today my feet will not listen.
I have tried to walk in a straight line with them;
they can do nothing but whirl in circles.

I come from what I dance around,
what the wind and I create in our movement:
that’s what I’ve come to move into.
See how this creation creates the creator.

See, this body, it lives to leave,
so I’ve come here to move through here,
back to where I am from.
See me as I walk away,
moving forward, walking back.

See me as I pass the ones, so many,
who’ve forgotten where they come from,
that it is not here.
See each one.
See all these, and see me—
we come from the same place.