The Year With No Address
       

A train, trees, houses. Where
was I going? Sleeping
in a friend's guest bedroom
with no job and no plan.

Across the aisle, a man leaned
wanting my story. He had
a house in Newton and a nice overcoat.
You're free, he said

meaning not like me.
He thought he knew the home
I could go back to, solid foundation
in the sucking earth. That I could afford

mistakes. And I, white
in thrift store skirt, looked the part.
At my friend's house I ranted
as she folded napkins.

She had some ideas about the way
he saw it. Her husband
said nothing, sorting mail
in the background. I could not return

the favor — that was the fault line
in our friendship forever. A strange
feeling in the house: a home,
though I wasn't home; blind

like when you gain
weight suddenly and walk
into things. Soft blue carpet, a two-
car garage: these things can trip

you up. They can put you
right to sleep. Even now
I don't like to think about the time
when I had nowhere to go but her.

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Copyright © 2020 Megan Alpert All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission