When You're That Person

home no more home to me, wither must I wander?
Robert Louis Stevenson

ah when you're that person

getting up and leaving the room

thinking you'll return, it'll just be a moment

the rainbows curve back on themselves but

the clouds come in

and someone's locked the doors.

you won't get back in

though you've worn the rugs clear through

in your time.

it's a gated day.

when you're this person,

what can you say:

open sesame?

starlight flings itself away

needlessly on the grasses

when there's no one left to

note it passes away.

they won't notice at all

your shadow missing

in the family picture.

but somewhere, birds cry

flocking nowhere.

somewhere the winds die down

and it isn't Oz anymore

my grieving child,

over the spent farms.

mary angela douglas 26 april 2015;17 march 2016