Soft Indian bark
lines the heels of his feet
walking the cracked cement of his undone home streets.
He woke as a stranger
for one day
his jacket turned into pine
his eyelashes became an ash grey.
A tourist in his parents’ town
with bourbon colored hair,
wavy down to his knees
the color of his face
mismatching
his father’s long earned Catholic white
He became a
founder of the same
while using Spanish verbs to
conjugate German thoughts
in a Southern town
with two street lights
they put up after the accident he saw at five and now forgot.
He never saw a bus before
He never crossed the street
where his sister used to lay and wait
during the middle of a purple night.
Tomorrow he’ll wake in Africa
donning black hair over
a Nordic face
with toes wrapped in diamonds grown in Botswana
But it will be the same street
his mother adorned with daffodils
before she turned 58.
He will disappear by noon
to turn over distant homes like stones.