the brick kitchen is comforting
and the fire escape adventurous and urban and
during midnight breakfasts cats curl around my calves but

i am the stranger
in the house.

this is the only home on the street.
the others are facades.
with the flick of a switch from the capitol
all the lights dance to life, supporting
spectacular shadow puppets, joints and jaws and all.
i speak to them sometimes, from the sidewalk
and they ask me if i'm alright.
of course i'm alright.

my window borders the church's parking lot,
and old church, with iron-strapped doors that feel like
imaginary months in Europe, and it has a bell
that tolls out over the city, or maybe dusty speakers
and every third hour it plays a ditty like a dour ice cream truck,
and each tone vibrates against itself like a violin lesson.

every night i walk to the gas station to buy beer.
i am only 22 but they know me, or they know
my face and my birthdate. they don't know
my nightmares and i don't know theirs.