Losing Faces

All I've seen this afternoon are the faces
of umbrellas in the streets outside
my window, muted footsteps through carpet,
and the ache of old caffeine. The floors
have been sanded and stained clean.
It's the first day in this place, I've outslept

the afternoon, inhaled new paints.
And here's kindness in the voices overhead,
they speak from affection as if speaking
of their gone instead of family or those

who lived here yesterday. It's a fifteen minute
walk to my bus, a forward thinking
fifteen minute walk to my bus that takes me
through the projects, concrete shapes
and red bricks all built closely together with
no faces in the windows, a one way to school

where they teach how to manage the poor
from faraway countries whose responsibilities
we sometimes own. Some of the windows
are broken, in the dead-lawn projects,

some of the balconies are draped with flowers
and green vines. Now that I must move
within this world I can no longer see it.
I miss my fly on the wall flat view of the world,
and my understanding. It used to make sense,
but, then, I used to be afraid of spiders.

I envy Emily Dickinson, though it must
have been hard butting heads
with the same hard edges on the same
second floor, keeping white her whites
without ever leaving home. Someone
must have gone candy shopping for her,
so she could attract all the children
to her own little garden. I got caught

in the rain on the way back from the bus,
saw a flying wall of splashing grey
through which nothing seemed
to stay still. The dry umbrella faces
showed their pity when I stared them
in the eye. I imagine a bed is a mixture

of all the places I've ever been, all
the hollows, crooks, and thighs I've ever rest
my head in. And people. And everything
changes, nothing ever different, and all things

being perfect I would rather be back home.
Rain inscribes the faces of fate for me, simple
and honest, on the dirt of the ground, all their fates
in letters of raging water. All so flowing
away from me. To God all prayer is worthwhile,
if you can think more clearly afterwards.

In the moments alone in the space of my mind,
the bass cat hums my bones, a single line
of melody alone at the end of my range.
I need to buy an umbrella.

I cannot sleep when my feet are cold
and the stubble on my cheeks rasps
against the pillow, everything so muddied
and twisted in a bed too new to use.