Lee Colin Thomas

Sometimes when I come into an unknown place
so familiar, all I want is to be able to say
its proper name. Not the one spelled out

by map or atlas, but the name that says
where I was, and also, who I was
just then, the time of day, the season

and the kind of light that evening when
the sun collapsed across stalks grown
elbow-high and better, in fields split

by two-lane county roads marked for 55.
Where millions of deep green leaves caught
the sun in their funnels until soaked

as for a pyre. The name for that place,
the day dying, for everything I thought about
as the car continued on, carrying me

through mid life – impossible, isn’t it?
Given all there is to do, and my child
self fresh enough in heart to cause

a tear in the ecology of memory. For who
I was once, in an unseen world, drawing
my own fence lines and secret places.

How can I leave him to stand and scare
the little hungers bound to come
for whatever’s left? Without marker or alias

I might never find him again.